Too big and bloated to really get airborne. Like that plane.

Rating: 5/10 (31 May 2005)

Like the "Spruce Goose" or "Hercules" as it was called, this film just cannot soar to the heights its makers intended. Though a great-looking picture, and full of great performers, the film is too long and lacks any truly gripping moments. Leonardo DiCaprio cannot sell me on the fact that he is Howard Hughes, nor did Scorsese sell me on his need to tell the story.
The Aviator is the story of eccentric filmmaker, inventor, and playboy Howard Hughes. After an early snippet from his childhood (which is never properly explained) we see him attempt to make an epic film with his own money involving hundreds of planes, actors, and a lot of cameras. The parts of the film dealing with Hughes the filmmaker are some of its finest moments. We see his obsession with perfection and his own vision triumph when everyone else around him plays the part of naysayer. By the second half of the film, we mostly see Hughes battle to save TWA airlines from a dirty senator and the owner of Pan Am. We also see Hughes become increasingly paralyzed and anti-social due to his fear of germs and human contact. Strangely enough, he is scared to death of things like a speck of lint on a colleague's clothes, yet he'll apparently jump in the sack with any young woman he sees. That inconsistency of his character is not fully explained to the extent I would have liked to have seen. The film concludes with Hughes repeating a line of dialog into a mirror like a broken record after finally getting his giant plane to fly around for a while.
Honestly, this film is no more helpful in providing an explanation of Hughes than any one-hour documentary on the History Channel could have been. His affairs are not that interesting, nor is his battle with the senator. His time sequestered in a screening room urinating in those milk bottles was intriguing, but not much of a payoff comes from it. The Howard Hughes this film presents us with seems normal in one scene, then merely functional in the next, then downright looney a few minutes later. The film really doesn't go to great lengths to explain any of it, though.
One word about DiCaprio... This guy just doesn't have it yet. Maybe some day he will, but all the accolades he got from this performance are simply not justified. He never once made me believe he was Howard Hughes. I know he doesn't physically look the real guy, but that shouldn't matter. Anthony Hopkins doesn't look a thing like Nixon, yet by the end of that film, I truly believed he was our 37th(?) president. I could much sooner believe Cate Blanchett as Hepburn, or even Jude Law as Errol Flynn for that matter. Scorsese has used DiCaprio in his last two big budget films, and I don't think it payed off in either. I don't know, maybe Scorsese is the problem, but that is far less-likely. The film may have received 11 Oscar nominations, but the box office figures don't lie. It will need huge rental numbers to break even.
5 of 10 stars for The Aviator.
Better luck next time for Scorsese. The Hound has spoken on this matter.