Flyboys

Flyboys_360P

Flyboys

source: Flyboys

As war movies go, Flyboys is a chick flick with aeroplanes. It is no where near the caliber of a Saving Private Ryan, Enemy at the Gates or The Blue Max. The scenarios portrayed are ridiculous, absurd and/or far fetched. The dialog is corny and the characters lack depth. The film has more holes than a downed Sopwith Camel. There are periodic subtitles. A French girl miraculously learns to speak English. Copper jacketed, lead bullets shower sparks when they pass through aircraft fabric. The actors did what they could, with the writing they had to work with. The set design was outstanding. The cinematography was beautiful. The computer generated aerial combat scenes were interesting, however redundant. I couldn't wait for it to end.

Flyboys is set in the area of the Great War 1914 - 1918 and the hope of getting historical information presented in a nice movie with detailed characters was very high on my side. Unfortunately this hope was in vain since the movie is full of stereotypes and predictable from the beginning on. Hero looses family farm - hero gets over to to France to join the air force - hero meets a pretty french girl - hero saves her from the bad Germans and takes revenge for his friend who was killed by an ruthless evil, off course you guessed it, German pilot. Besides all that the historical facts have been completely ignored, not every single Fokker DR. 1 was red. There was this guy called Freiherr von Richthofen also known as the Red Baron who flew one of those airplanes and painted it red, but this movie was filled with his clones. The only highlights in this movie is the acting of Jean Reno and the flight scenes else-wise I would not recommend to go and see this movie. It is just not worth the money and time.

The first problem I have with this film is in it's opening titles claiming to be based on a true story. This sets you up with anticipation that the filmmakers have developed this film aiming for authenticity, recreating what it was like to be the first fighter pilots in the first modern war. For the first time films makers have the tools with CGI to truly accurately portray the visceral effects of WWI dog fighting to put the audience right back into the thick shell smoked 1916 western front. However they fall VERY short of the mark because through their obsession with their aerial money shots, they seem to have forgotten the human story of the true horrors of combat and what it does to the human soul. In the fact it's the human story that the director makes the biggest hash of. It's Horrors of war painted by numbers, lets have the veteran seen it all, lets have the fearless guy and then just so people know war can be nasty lets have a shell shock guy. But this is done so distastefully it truly mocks people who have actually been traumatized by war. This films claims to have the most authentic aerial combat footage ever put to film. The CGI shots are also no where near as good as the film makers think they are. In many cases they come across as in game movie footage from an Xbox360, cartoon like and unreal. The filmmakers have also made no effort to research their period, without creating any spoilers there is some truly ludicrous almost James Bond like action set pieces that take away all sense that you are watching a realistic war film. The bi-planes might as well have afterburners and laser beams and fly into space, the film wouldn't be any less believable and probably a lot more interesting. This is nothing more than a boys own story; where the first casualty is truth or realism. It has a TV movie feel and the acting is so bad you couldn't care less who lives or dies by the end of it. This film could have offered so much but it seems the director and the produces bottled out and aimed for an arcade computer style shoot em up with shallow acting and a big helping of cartoon CGI.

"Flyboys" is a huge disappointment. The action is plodding at best, and James Franco is thrust at us as if he's the next Tom Cruise. The biggest problem is the many historical inaccuracies. Since the movie is historical in nature, getting some of the history right would have been nice. The biggest problem I saw was the German Air Force. Rittmeister Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen, the Red Baron, painted his Foulker Triplane red to stand out. The other planes under his command (including a young Herman Goerring) followed suit, but left variations. His brother Lothar painted the tail Yellow. Others added Blue, black or other colors. According to the movie, however, every plane in the German Air Force was the Red Baron. There is tremendous literature on this, including the Journal of Richthofen himself, his brothers' writing, even Goerring, who commanded the squadron at the end of the war, explained this. There are other problems, including the performance abilities of the planes, which look good on film, but would not have happened in the air.

I think overall the PUBLIC knows more and is more sophisticated than producers and some directors. I think is is an OK movie. What we lack is people willing to make and finance a great war movie. I am sure given a bigger budget the director could have done better, but all in all this is not a bad movie. If there is any criticism it is not for the movie, however it would have been better to cut the wing and not the arm in the story, but that's drama. My only real criticism is for people who made movies like Pearl Harbor, and Alexander who have an agenda of putting their lifestyle into the characters so we end up with a effeminate Alexander eying what looks like Howard Stern in drag or a couple of Jet setters out of the bar circuit in Hollywood acting like they are 1955 teenagers in a 1943 war movie as in Pearl Harbor with a leading lady who is right off the real TV date shows, juggling 2 Bo's. Films like those make it difficult to make films like FLYBOYS and I think the film and people who made it should be congratulated, they did it without big producers, most of whom think that NORMAL people are like the people in SIDEWAYS, and while they see fault in the audience, they see none in themselves. We NEED MORE MOVIES LIKE THIS, AND THEY WILL MAKE A TON OF MONEY. Just like the Longest Day, Apocoplyse Now, Mash, Saving Private Ryan. So it is a good movie and hats off to the parents of the Greatest Generation and to the Flyboys of WW1. Thanks.

I was privileged to see the premier showing of FlYBOYS at the Warner Theatre 8/26/06. This is probably one of the best WW I movies I have seen! I am a also pilot, so I am commenting from that knowledge as well. The love story plot made sense and did not overshadow the fact that this was a view of our US pilots in WW I. I would rate this a MUST see for pilots as well as WW I buffs, then for others a very great movie that you can bring your children to. I would rate it right up there with "The Great Waldo Pepper" and "Blue Max"..