A very nice experience

Rating: 8/10 (12 January 2005)

I tentatively went to see "The Aviator." I'm not really a Leonardo Di Caprio fan, not a big fan of 3-hour movies. I'm very glad I made the effort, and not because I turned around right after and sneaked into "Meet the Fockers." The film was shot very nice, although some suspension of belief was necessary for some shots that were very obviously "fake-looking." Generally, it was nothing fancy, and only a few things (like flashbulbs popping) were overdone a bit.
The performances were very enjoyable, even to the point where Kate Blanchett was every bit as annoying as Katherine Hepburn as Katherine Hepburn seemed to be in real life. Possibly a bit of overacting there. Di Caprio did an outstanding job as a younger Howard Hughes, and the scene amid the Senate testimony does not disappoint.
The story is an interesting one, and like Hughes or not, it makes me long for days when there were truly "heroic" men of vision like Hughes or Chuck Yeager who always sought the next dragon to slay.
You are, however, very aware of how long the movie is. It doesn't really click along. But that time is filled with entertaining material and it's difficult to really point to any one thing and say "that should have been cut" to shorten the flick.
I'll be buying this one the night the DVD comes out.