Product: Flyboys [Blu-ray] (2006)
Rating: 5.0
For the movie-buff, not the historian
Like many have said before, this was a film I waited months to see as well. That kind of anticipation can swing both ways, setting one up for either a great film viewing experience of a real let-down. Flyboys kept me at the edge of my seat the whole time. If you are concerned with the technical details of aircraft, insignia and flying techniques, then just relax, please! This is a entertainment, not a didactic examination of aerial combat. There was one comment about "physics" and aviation here. One must remember that Bill needs to appeal to the audience of 2006, most of whom who have seen airships move through space and time in the blink of an eye cinematically, and who have traveled on commercial aircraft, if not experienced ski-jets, ninja bikes and ultra-fast rollercoater rides. So, how do you make aircraft that travel along at barely over 100 mph look exciting on the screeen. Perhaps a little poetic license is to be permitted, no? If the acting was less then stellar, I didn't seem to notice. I cared about the characters. I wanted them to succeed and survive. Sure, there were cliches in abundance, but I didn't mind. There are cliches in just about every action film I've seen in the last decade.And the love story was touching and kept the film from being a stringing together of combat sequences (which, incidently, were stunning).I came to this picture with a bit of a bias as I love reading and learning about combat aircraft of the two world wars. Flyboys was exactly the type of film I was looking forward to seeing. It embraces a time when air combat was still almost hand to hand, and could be face to face.There is a certain existentialism about the short lives these men led and yet they wouldn't have made their choices differently.I am grateful to the producers and all involved in making a film that is the noble aspects of human beings, as opposed to making entertainment about people doing "dumb" things or mountains of ironic statements.