only worth seeing because Blanchett is wonderful as Hepburn

Rating: 4/10 (20 June 2005)

It seems to me that a great director, Martin Scorsese, after making magnificent movies like "Taxi Driver", "New York New York", "Goodfellas", "Raging Bull", "Casino", is creating disappointment lately with "Gangs of Newyork", "Bringing out the dead" and ultimately with this movie, "The Aviator".
It lacks depth in many ways. The plane crash scene is very far from reality. The only relationship of Howard Hughes that is given properly is the one with Hepburn. Ava Gardner and the others comes and goes without making sense.
DiCaprio is awful. I think he performed very well in "Catch me if you can" but Howard Hughes proves to be beyond his acting skills.
The first part of the movie was promising, with the shooting of "Hell's Heroes" and the affair between Howard Hughes and Katharine Hepburn keeping the pace up. Cate Blanchett is doing a wonderful work playing the legendary actress.
But after the first hour the movie turns its interest to the aviation war and Hughes as a producer and film maker disappears from the scene. Further developments and the changes in Hughes character is getting more boring with each minute. Leonardo DiCaprio is not convincing and Scorsese could not manage to pull it together properly.