So you're saying USMC doesn't stand for University of Seattle-Metro Campus?: "Jarhead"

Curious movie, this "Jarhead." My reflex was to regard this as "Platoon Lite." But that's the point, since the first Gulf War wasn't much at all compared to Vietnam -- I know, an understatement -- which left a generation of soldiers disillusioned in a whole different way. Of course, given what's going on now, "Jarhead" is even odder. And not just because Jake Gylllllllllenhaaaaaaaal has more hair on his eyebrows than on the rest of his body.

As directed by Sam Mendes, the guy behind "American Beauty" and "Road to Perdition," "Jarhead" simply follows a bunch of Marines through duty during the war -- first on standby in Operation Desert Shield, then in action during Desert Storm.

Our man Jake is the central figure; the movie is based on his character's book. Along for the ride are such luminaries as Jamie Foxx (the platoon leader), Peter Sarsssssssgaaaaaaard (Jake's main bud), Lucas Black (another marine; he was the kid in "Sling Blade," remember?), and Chris Cooper and Dennis "President Palmer/Pedro Cerrano" Haysbert (high-ranking officers). Not a bad cast, and bonus points for giving Jake a hot hometown honey.

The story here isn't the war but what it was like waiting for war, and what war means to kids today. To hammer the point home, we get constant reminders of Vietnam, from Jake's dad being a vet to Marines eager to watch such movies as "Apocalypse Now" and "The Deer Hunter." These guys may not know why they're here, but they know that this isn't war. That was war.

For better or worse, our guys do see action, and we get to see that war is hell, literally. In one of the better scenes, the enemy lighting the oil wells on fire results in a blackened sky in which oil rains down on the troops. These fellas may not be in a bunch of shoot 'em ups, but that stuff sure seemed to suck.

The performances? Not bad. Someone probably could have done better than Gyllenhaal, and Sarsgaard seemed too sleepy for his role. Foxx also was merely OK; seemed like he might start cracking jokes at any time, which wasn't very intimidating. Actually, the funniest guy was Black, the Marine who kept objecting to this and that, refusing to take pills because a year from not his assh*le would be turned inside out.

So yeah ... I'm not sure about this one. I kind of had a "That's it?" feel when it was over, but like I said earlier, you could say that about the war itself. How these guys dealt with that is interesting, I guess, but for some reason "Jarhead" felt a little off. It looked good and wasn't bad, but also wasn't great. But what do I know? The closest I got to military service was giving 50 cents to The Salvation Army.