Aside from the gaping plot hole an nerd like me can rationalize away this movie was great. Especially considering it was the guy who's playing the main character's first acting gig and he add-libed all his lines
When we first saw the mech we knew it was going to be operational at some point. When we saw the mech running around we knew we were going to see the curly missiles. We did not expect the flying pig.
Unrelated but related (With a minor spoiler): I really thought they tried too hard to make the bad guys villains. There was no moral ambiguity, just "WE'RE NAZI BABY RAPISTS! LET'S KILL HIM FOR MONEY!"
Great movie and all, but, yeesh, that's kinda lazy writing.
If anything, the film makers didn't go far enough in their portrayal.
The guys who get into that line of work are major-league evil. They pretty much have carte-blanche to do whatever they want to people who don't have anyone to defend their rights. On top of that, they get paid to do it.
Anyway, MAJOR SPOILER: Seeing Venter ripped to pieces and eaten was cringe-inducing, but highly satisfying.
I think the point he was trying to make was how one-dimensional the villian (head mercenary) was, which bothered me too.
He was just very cliche bad guy to me, always angry for seemingly no reason at all (for instance, in the scene near the beginning with the ammo), and sometimes down right cartoonish. I think he even said "I can't believe I get paid to do this!"
But I stopped thinking about this kind of thing the third or fourth time a guy exploded.
When I saw this the other night, half the crowd went nuts when this happened. I guess San Francisco nerds really like seeing Half-Life references in movies.