Scorsese is on form with this exciting biopic

Rating: 7/10 (8 January 2005)

The Aviator traces the life of millionaire businessman, film producer, film director, and aviator, Howard Hughes, paying particular attention to his middle years as a record-breaking aviator and movie mogul.
With nearly three hours of viewing time, The Aviator has quite a lot for your money's worth. Fortunately, most of it is gripping enough to keep you fascinated to the very last frame. Scorsese seems to have documented much of Hughes life very accurately, focussing on his exciting involvement in aeroplanes and film-making, rather than the murkier world of his behind the scenes involvement in politics, and stopping before he gets too bogged down with Howard Hughes the weird recluse.
With a host of stars, Leonardo DiCaprio pulls off the title role admirably, the likes of Kate Beckinsale (as Ava Gardner), John C. Reilly, Alec Baldwin, and Ian Holm all put in good work, and the delightful cameos of Gwen Stefani as Jean Harlow and Jude Law as Errol Flynn keep things moving nicely; but the show-stealer for me was re-creation of screen legend Katharine Hepburn by Cate Blanchett, whose character comes as a vibrant breath of fresh air against a backdrop of fairly right-wing, power-seeking individuals.
In The Aviator, Scorsese has found a subject who is nothing if not interesting. Howard Hughes set revolutions rippling through Hollywood, making - at the time - the most expensive movie ever produced, and his attention to detail is one that Scorsese perhaps admires and even successfully emulates. As an aviator, Hughes pioneered new engineering techniques with almost fanatical zeal, not only breaking most known airspeed records but introducing along the way countersunk rivets and retractable landing gear to reduce wind resistance and so make planes go faster. His own involvement was charismatic  he would fly the planes himself, often risking life and limb, whether to test new prototypes or, even in earlier years, to do dangerous stunts in his films. His brushes with the censors (he created the half-cup bra for his protégé Jane Russell) add further colour to what was already an over-the-top lifestyle, and the fact that he often actually succeeded, even when taking on big business or the government, prevent him from being dismissed as a mere playboy.
Howard Hughes also had some sort of mental aberration, expressing itself as phobias to obsessive behaviour, but the film manages to suggest, to me at least, that his illness may even have helped him towards greatness rather than making him accept and adapt to a more normal level of achievement. But as is often the case with Scorsese, there is no underlying philosophising, no artistic flights of fancy, no deep questions asked or answered. What we do have is good story-telling, and it would perhaps be a bit mean and overcritical to say the result is a bit flat or unimaginative.
As traditional Big Picture movie making goes, The Aviator is a success, and will no doubt garner many awards and delight audiences for years to come.