The Aviator Crashes and Burns

Rating: 4/10 (25 September 2009)

The Aviator is a film that had terrific potential to tell a compelling story, but the potential was unrecognized.
The usually bullet proof Martin Scorsese ultimately disappointed with this feature. I'm not certain where exactly he went wrong, but it almost seemed to me that halfway through the film, it was as if he gave up.
The acting is fine & the art direction is wonderful, but somewhere throughout the process of shooting this film, the story becomes bogged down and seems to be stuck in quick sand.
Attempting to tell the story of the super eccentric Howard Hughes and his love for flight, obviously proved to be too much for Marty to handle. There were scenes that were done well and quite interesting, but in a moment, large amounts of time passes to get to the next scene which not only confuses the viewer, but brings us to a moment in Howard's life that if far from interesting or captivating. In short, the interesting, key parts of the film were too short and scenes that were not needed were far too long. This seemed to be the norm throughout the film.
In closing, by the end of this movie, there was still plenty of story that should have been told, as I have an interest in Howard Hughes and his life. For people who were not familiar with him who saw the movie, I think they got a raw deal and were short changed.