Product: Flyboys [Blu-ray] (2006)
Rating: 3.0
Cliched, Contrived, Laughable Dialogue, But A Great Score With Amazing Dogfight Sequences Make It Worthwhile
MOVIE: Flyboys is a strange thing to dissect. It's a movie you really want to like, but you just can't help but face the fact that it's so cliched and poorly written. The story is centered around Blaine Rawlings, a young man who leaves his past to go fly planes in France. Each of the young men has a story behind them. Some do it for glory, some because they are forced to, some trying to make better lives for themselves, or some escaping their troubles. The film tells the story of the Lafayette Escadrille, a fleet of young Americans who flew planes for the French in WWI before the U.S entered the war. The entire film is schmaltzy with some lame dialogue and weak acting, but it's entertaining. The dogfights, even though the CGI seems unpolished, are quick paced and really great. The story does a good job of building the characters, but since the characters are very flat we really don't care when they get shot down and die. Every formulaic cliche is followed and the movie itself can be followed like a map, there is no surprise as to where it builds and leads to. The audience can pretty much stay one step ahead of the characters, and that is due to the poorly written story. Decent cinematography and set design enhance the atmosphere of the movie, and the dogfights are intense and entertaining to watch. The movie just doesn't exceed in any area to make it memorable. The narrative is greatly enhanced by Trevor Rabins score. Rabin flexes his orchestral muscles and delivers one of his best scores ever. All in all the movie was a good experience, but it's just so cliched.ACTING: The moment after I saw the trailer I asked myself why couldn't they have spent some money on a good cast. James Franco seems to play the same person in every movie. In his previous outing, The Great Raid, he played pretty much the same person. At least The Great Raid had Joseph Fiennes and Marton Csokas. The only credible actor here is Jean Reno who is always great even though the only reason he got the role was because he's French. Martin Henderson never lands good roles and I really don't like him. He tries to pull off a tough guy with a troubled past here, but you just want to flick his nose and laugh every time he gets all up in James Franco's face. A better cast could have helped with the lack of a quality script, it sure did with The Great Raid.BOTTOM LINE: Amazing dogfights that should be seen on the big screen, but poor acting and a weak contrived script hinders this film from being anything extraordinary.