DiCaprio's performance makes the movie!

Rating: 9/10 (19 June 2005)

Director Martin Scorsese's latest film, "The Aviator," is a biopic on billionaire Howard Hughes. In this film, Leonardo DiCaprio portrays Howard Hughes, filmmaker and aviator, obviously. "The Aviator" only shows Hughes' life from about 1920s to the 1940s and stops before his death in the '60s. They show his life with actress Katherine Hepburn (played perfectly by Cate Blanchett), Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale), Pan Am president (Alec Baldwin), Senator Owen Brewster (Alan Alda), and even a run in with famous actor Errol Flynn (Jude Law). The movie follows Hughes on his journey through film-making, insanity, different types of disorders, relationships, and his genius of imagination and pushing of the envelope.
DiCaprio's performance in this film is one of the best I have seen in a while. Cate Blanchett does so well that I thought I was actually watching Katherine Hepburn on screen for a while. Director Martin Scorsese takes on a different challenge from going to his usual violent, dark, and disturbing movies to ones like this. He does everything so perfect that it's hard to resist, his cinematography, his set pieces, and especially the quality he gets out of his actors. "The Aviator" is a great film, possibly one of the best that have come out of a true story. It has drama, wonderful acting, has one of the best, most intense and realistic airplane crashes that I have ever seen. Not to mention that the film is a spectacle to look at the whole two hours and forty-six minutes.