Product: Flyboys [Blu-ray] (2006)
Rating: 1.0
A swing and a miss, not even a flyball
I have just had an interesting time perusing the 101 previous reviews. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me there's a wide range of opinion out there. How often do we find headlines running from one-starred "Save your money" to three-starred "Good enough" to five-starred "Best movie of 2006 - also best kept secret"? And all three comments in consecutive reviews on a single Amazon "page"?[For the enlightenment of any cynics out there, I read the reviews and the attached comments as well as the headlines.]The main objection to "Flyboys" seemed to arise from the innumerable errors found on the screen. They ranged from the airplanes that did not exist at the time of the film, to the super-abundance of Red Barons infesting the skies above France, to the breathtaking indifference to the laws of physics, to the positively giddy misapprehensions about what actually took place in the First World War (aka The Great War aka The War to End All Wars ... ahem.) Now you may think that these historical boners, these intellectual clunkers are characteristic of video game-addled, Star Wars-bedazzled, comic book-educated lunkheads and lamebrains rather than of responsible adults given control over the millions and millions of dollars required to make a motion picture--but I say to err is human and to provide reason for selling all that overpriced popcorn is near-divine (at least for the theater owners.)A smaller group of naysayers held forth that the plot of the movie made no sense and that the people on the screen masquerading as actors displayed no slightest hint of talent. I heartily dispute the latter. The always excellent Jean Reno, who portrayed the French commandant of the flyboy squadron, was right up there on the screen to show what a competent actor looks like. For several minutes, at least.Enough negativity. Most reviewers clearly loved this picture. Many of them took up such stirring war cries as, "Never listen to the CRITICS! This is one of the BEST!!!!", "Never mind the critics" and "The critics don't get it,"--not to mention the immortal, "Don't listen to the `experts.'" And the reasons they gave to turn off your mind and just drool in your seat were ... uh, and .... Oh, yes, here's one, and by far the best of the bunch: "I took my 4-year old to see it, and he loved it." Yes! Absolutely!! Take that you hyper-critical snobs!!!As for myself , I shall venture just one small criticism: not one minute, not one second, not one frame of the flying sequences looked convincing. "Flyboys" is the most compelling argument I have ever seen against using CGI on a motion picture screen. "Cheesy," "unreal" and unintentionally hilarious" don't even come close to expressing the way I feel about this visual train wreck.Take the vaunted Zeppelin sequence: the animation in "Wallace and Grommet" was more convincing. Much more. Now look at the Zeppelin sequence in Howard Hughes' 1930 blockbuster, "Hell's Angels." Both are special effects sequences. The 21st century version just lies down and dies, leaving a bad taste in your mouth. Its 76 year-old predecessor (in color, mind you!) pins you back in your seat. When the Zep crashes, if I hadn't known the date of "Hell's Angels" I'd have believed that Hughes had intercut some lost color film of the Hindenberg tragedy.DVD STUFF: In my journey through the earlier reviews, I noticed that some critics looked askance at comments addressed solely to the film and not to the DVD. With that in mind I hasten to inform everyone that "Flyboys" appears on one or more plastic disks, and that in some editions it is accompanied by other stuff of no discernible significance.A FINAL WISTFUL THOUGHT: Wouldn't it be nice if somebody, somewhere, someday made a movie about the Lafayette Escadrille?