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Rating: 6/10 (9 November 2018)

Continuing the run of Biopics that dominated the 2005 Oscars, "The Aviator" tells the life story of Howard Hughes from film producer, to Hollywood playboy, to aviator entrepreneur, to recluse.
Given the many and various things that Howard Hughes attempted in his life, the movie feels to me like it's skimming over his story somewhat. I think it would have been better suited to take a deeper dive on one or two key aspects, rather than trying to cover it all. It makes some of it feel a bit disjointed, for example, Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale) comes and goes from his life without much explanation of how they connected, or reconnected following a violent breakup. There's little information provided about how things really turned out, his film for example, "Hell's Angels" is given a sceptical standing ovation at the Premier, but we're never provided any information on how the film turned out.
Whilst I'm stuck on the negatives (and I know I'm criticising a legend here) I don't think some of the choices for shots are great. There are occasional hyper kinetic pan shots that I had to look away from to stop from feeling queasy. There are also some horrible overlays in establishing shots of locations and occasionally the effects haven't held up very well (although that's not the case in every scene).
Which is not the say that the film is terrible, or bad even. Performances are great, across the board. It's a very mannered performance but Cate Blanchett is worthy of her best supporting Oscar for her performance as Katherine Hepburn. John C Reilly and Matt Ross are also good. There are a myriad of little performances, sometimes only in one scene, from the likes of Jude Law, Willem Defoe and Danny Huston that add to the quality of the production. But it's Leonardo DiCaprio's film. He's in virtually every scene and his performance was definitely good value for the nomination, though I'd agree it's not better than Jamie Foxx in "Ray".
Never dull despite its running time, "The Aviator" is tremendous from a performance viewpoint, though a little shallow, making it solid but not essential.