Perfect. That is the feedback I am looking for.
Yes this is sadly my downfall. I am a story teller, but not a writer. My true passion is to make movies. I have many interesting and unique ideas I want to see on the silver screen, why? So I can enjoy them. Honestly, I like these stories I have written soooo much I want to see them on the screen, and so therefore I put my self through this sort of stuff in hopes of breaking through somewhere. This story I felt had the best potential to be made into a book. So I am going to dump a lot of resources and time into writing this until it is a good read. I know the plot and story are there, but my ability to capture my thoughts and convey them to the reader in an interesting form will be a challenge.
I will be taking a lot of writing classes at the start of the year up at college, so hopefully that boosts this project up to publishing level.
My advice is general rather than specific.
1. Read as much as you can. Stephen King says read four hours a day, write four hours a day. Well most of us can't afford that much time, but the point is, read a lot. Your style will improve massively with every book, even if it's in just one genre (by the way, what genre is this? Fantasy? Magic Realism?)
2. Take courses in writing.
3. Use a dictionary/thesaurus for every largish word you use to MAKE 100% SURE it has the EXACT TECHNICAL MEANING you want, not the one you "feel" the word should have.
4. Don't use capitalised words, or exclamation points. Just don't
Buy a style manual to find out why.
5. Avoid cliches. This is a massive pitfall in writing. Why? Because if something "sounds right" to you, it's probably because you've heard the expression before (hence your use of "shock and awe" etc)... which means almost everyone else has heard it as well... which means that you absolutely should NOT use it. "Sounds right to you = don't use it" is a goddamn hard trick to master.
Your second segment is definately better than the first.
Also, I have the same problem regarding "seeing it as a movie and trying to put it on paper." One potential way to deal with this problem is to right from a character's point of view. Ie, don't describe anything except what that character sees and thinks). You can still create the "scenes" of the movie by jumping from one characters POV to another's every couple of pages, and using hundreds of extremely short chapters ala Dan Brown style. The added advantage of "super short chapters" is that you can write a first draft of each chapter (potentially) in one sitting, which can help keep things consistent. People say it's a cheap technique, but I doubt Dan gives a shit.