Flyboys

(2006)

My Cinematic Reivew




My personal Review

Short
Though this movie has the makings for failure—unseasoned cast, James Franco, a likely cliché French love story with a romanticism of an obscure World War I story ("Pearl Harbor"-esk)—the film is surprising. No, I didn’t say that it was good, but I was actually entertained. At 2 hours and 20 minutes, the film is way too long, and with an empty plot, you often wonder what is being accomplished with the time. Also, the acting and script are pretty sorry. So what did I like..the air battles. In no way do the abundant action sequences make the movie worth seeing, but they do make it less painful. So let me cut to the chase, this movie is no good, but if you enjoy aerial battles it is worth a look late night on TV (where you have the option to change the channel periodically).

---

Full

To be honest, I already said most of my thoughts in the short. The movie has bad acting, a weak script, and some history re-writing, but I liked the arieal battles. However, keep in mind that these planes are not much more than a motor with wings in the sky, so don’t expect explosions (which I was). In fact, the first few battles seem anticlimactic by ending with a plane merely trailing smoke as it falls to the earth. But after the first few, you get into the mind set and start to appreciate the battle antics more.

The plot
A French military unit recruits some Americans to be pilots in the good fight…WWI. Blaine (Franco) is the 'rebel without a cause' who quickly climbs to squad leader and leads his men to many victories. He also falls in love with a French women whom he is forced to resuce from danger periodically. The film eventually ends with the completion of a successful mission that may have no grand significance unless you are a great war buff.

Reasons to see it
The aerial battles. With decent special effects and some pretty good ideas, the visuals of these battles are pretty entertaining. The script does a poor job of making us care about any of the characters, or who dies, but their deaths can be interesting. Being accustome to modern technology can throw you for a loop when you learn things about how pilots used to fly 'old school'. Yeah, overall, lots of fun to watch.

The Negatives
Everything else.
The acting is even lower than sub-par and the script can be noticeably foolish at times. In fact, the people that seemed like the best actors were the ones with the least dialogue, but even they failed to pull off convincing emotions.

The love story is not actually as bad as it should be, it does have its cute parts. But for anyone who almost lost their minds during "Pearl Harbor", this movie isn’t doing you any favors.

In summary…
Don’t see the movie unless you have some special reason for doing so (crush on James Franco, really like WWI, or bet your frinds that you could sit through the whole thing). But personally, I sort of enjoyed it, so maybe someone will like it.