The Aviator: 7/10

Rating: 7/10 (1 January 2005)

I can't really talk about Martin Scorsese's directorial credentials, as I've only seen three of his movies: Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and The Aviator. All of them have the same rating-why is that? Maybe it's Scorsese's inability to keep those movies under two hours (The Aviator clocks in at about three with previews), or since those three movies dealt on real people, did Scorsese and his screenwriters get their life stories wrong? Whatever the case is, they're all good, but maybe I'm just not able to appreciate everything Scorsese does. It's been two years since Leonardo DiCaprio's last role in Catch Me If You Can. He's not what everyone made him out to be after Titanic; he's no longer just an idol of teenage girls. Instead, he's proved himself to be a fine actor, one that's perfect to play Howard Hughes.
In the beginning of the movie, Howard Hughes (DiCaprio) is working on directing a huge epic movie. We have no backstory to him, which may have caused trouble later on. There's no telling of how he got his massive fortune, but I digress. He works for three or four years on his picture Hell's Angels, making it the most expensive movie at that time. The movie follows Hughes through his his tumultuous movie career, pioneering aviation career (such as buying TWA), his relationships with Katharing Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) and Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale), and his insanity (spoofed brilliantly on The Simpsons, I might add). You'll also see Jude Law as Errol Flynn (in his sixth, and final, role of late 2004).
For its almost-three-hour runtime, The Aviator seemed to go by rather quickly. We have the great Howard Shore score, which is sometime mixed with music from the era, to create an odd-but interesting-effect. Scorsese's direction is great in some parts, but not in others. In the crash sequence, Scorsese finds ways to build up the tension (although the interior of the houses we see look quite late-1990s...), even though we know there's still at least an hour to go in the movie, yet when it comes to the tail end of the movie, when we see Hughes in all of his insane glory, we don't really see how he progressed from a mid-case OCDer to this completely delusional psycho. It's a complete transition. Although we do get a sense that Hughes is becoming more mentally unstable, it's just completely from left-field, and maybe instead of 15 minutes of showing how different he is from the Hepburn family, Scorsese could have showed what pushed him over the edge or something like that.
The movie looked pretty good. The cinematography was pretty good; it's probably the one Oscar that this movie is a shoo-in for. There's DiCaprio's acting, which'll be nominated, but won't win (obviously, Jamie Foxx for Ray). DiCaprio obviously studied Hughes and his mannerisms, and does a good job pulling him off, but can anyone compare him to what Hughes was really like? Acting out someone who no one remembers (personally) is kind of a cop-out for not having to do a top-notch acting job (see, Foxx didn't have it that easy for Ray Charles). Yet he still did a good job, and threw off any lingering "King of the World" thoughts that people had about him. Blanchett is quickly rising on my favorite actress list-this and The Life Aquatic back to back, great in both. There's John C. Reilly, who's a good actor, but whose voice is so damn recognizable it's hard to consider him a powerhouse actor. And Alec Baldwin. Remember when, in South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, the Baldwins' house, and everyone was happy? They were happy because Alec Baldwin couldn't play a character named JUAN! That's like Johnny Depp playing Fat Albert. It just doesn't work.
The Aviator is an entertaining movie. Sure, it drags for a bit, and is unnecessarily long, but it's never boring. It's by no means the year's best biopic (that goes to Ray), but it's an entertaining one.
My rating: 7/10 Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, sexual content, nudity, language and a crash sequence.