Fly Away, Fly Away

Rating: 4/10 (24 January 2005)

The Aviator is a good movie. and I guess what upsets me is that It should have been a GREAT MOVIE. It stumbles and falls so far away from Greatness that it leaves me yearning for the great movie that it could have been.
I'm not gonna repeat the plot, it's a basic bio-pic, in which Leonardo DeCaprio SHINES as Howard Hughes. It's his performance that holds the movie together.
If anything, I find most fault in the SCREENPLAY by JOHN LOGAN which was LAZY and un-layered. In John Logan's world people just don't suffer complexities, they fall easily into Hollywood archetypes --- the fighter, the dreamer, the risk-taker, each of these Howard Hughes get a scene. But none of these traits come together to give him a three-dimensional personality. John Logan is a good writer, he can spin a good line, but he can't string together plot, or character complexities to save his life.
Martin Scorcese is a master, YES. Goodfella's was AWESOME, I even loved, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, one of my favorite films. But with Gangs of New York, and The Aviator, he seems to be trying to HARD. Martin Scorcese is a MASTER, YES, but in The Aviator he is not masterful. He does not strive to give us a great film. just a great looking film.
The idea of a RICH MAN with a DREAM that goes on to make his Dream happen in itself is not very exciting. I mean, he is after all A RICH MAN, it's very easy to make your DREAMS COME TRUE when you have all those resources. So, his fears, his phobias, and his psyche, all the things that would have made a great bio-pic are in the end only merely mentioned and never fully explored and this is why the film never delivers on its promise.
All in all, The Aviator, however, still works. It has very little emotional impact. But damn, it's sure a pretty picture to look at.