Product: Flyboys [Blu-ray] (2006)
Rating: 2.0
Pretty but pointless
I'm a big WW1 buff and really looked forward to this movie.Purported to be the real tale of the Lafeyette Escardrille, Americans who flew for France before 1917, it is only a disservice to those men. To look at it is very pretty and if you can overlook some flawed images, like all the Fokker triplanes being pained red, it looks good.Unfortuneatly this is where the good points end. Even without getting into the historical flaws the film rapidly become predictable, painfully so. You know who will die and can almost predict when and how an hour a head of time. A pointless love story with a french peasant is supposed to add an emotional touch but anyone familiar with a good war film knows this isn't needed. A crash in no man's land results in the feared German Army comming off more like the gang that couldn't shoot straight than the ravening Huns.The French officer is well done, but the actor can hardly turn in a bad performance even when playing opposite a CGI fire breathing lizard. The film even misses it's chance at the "Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die" out look that developed among the real pilots on both sides as they realized the mortality rate would probably claim them long before the war ended. This was something touched on far better by the David Niven, Errol Flynn film "Dawn Patrol."Ultimately what I hated about this was not the historically flawed plot, I love Errol Flynn's films, but the unforgivably predictable altitude this falls to, all to fast.Get a parachute and save yourself.