sorry but that face made me fall off the chair
well in the effects the black and white kinda..
but work on your posing and the light and you get better.
and try to not make the ragdolls look like retards if it isn't supposed to
yea haha i had a really awkward time trying to pose him D:
I believe it is necessary to work with posing, camera angles and composition first and only after that try to edit your works somehow using whatever. Good posing and view are one of the most important component parts of any picture. Effects can't save the day if your characters look like idiots with broken bones. In addition it's very important to understand, that effects are just tools helping you in distinguishing picture composition, not the final goal.
In the context of these pictures, first one looks pretty... adequate. No, really, it's not too bad, it's not good, it's just adequate. I guess the main problem is that I can't find out what the main part of this picture is. If it's about landscape with some destructions or something then there are too few details. The second picture has a lot of empty useless space. The action is getting lost and the face posing of the marine hinting that he is dumping or something.
However, keep trying and all's going to be ok. Good luck.
Editing as far as I can see is OK. Try to work on posing and camera angles first