Flyboys

Plot synopsis:
World War I began in Europe in 1914, but by 1917, the United States had still not entered the war. However, many brave young American men went to France to fly and fight for the Allied powers. They joined the Lafayette Escadrille fighter squadron. The Germans had better planes, weapons, and pilots. The average life expectancy for a fighter-pilot was three to six weeks. Why did these Americans volunteer to fight in France with certain death when their own country was not at war? This was a time when men were idealistic, but naive to embark on a great adventure. Blaine Rawlings (James Franco) was forced to leave his home in Texas after the family ranch was foreclosed by the bank. Blaine sees a newsreel of fighter-pilots in France and decides that he has nothing to lose. Briggs Lowry (Tyler Labine) can't do anything right and is shamed into joining by his rich father. African-American boxer Eugene Skinner (Abdul Salis) had been living in France, a racially tolerant country, for many years, wanted to give something back to his new country. These Americans were under the command of French Captain Georges Thenault (Jean Reno) and American Squadron Leader Reed Cassidy (Martin Henderson). Douglas Young (the-movie-guy)

Tags: revenge, romantic

Review:
These men had a sense of adventure and romance of war, and they believed in "dying with honor." The movie uses a composite of these qualities of the actual pilots, and yes, there really was a black pilot in the squadron.
I think the writers could have used the real pilots' stories and names, and it would have been a better movie by giving credit to those young men.
The film makers could have added a red scheme to the planes but left a portion olive drab and blue underside, it still would have made the Germans distinctive without being clones of Manfred von Rictoffen.The dogfights are fun to watch and are fairly exciting, however the planes fly highly unrealistically at times.
In the end, that's what this story is about, and the love story, the individual pilot lives fade into the background.Still, it's worth noting, one of the movie's best moments is the denouement where we learn what happened to the Americans of the Lafayette Escadrille, those who survived.
(It probably would have cost nothing to do it right.) A short list would include: Nonexistent aircraft in 1916 such as the Fokker Triplanes (all of them red except the black one!), Sopwith Camel, SE-5, and Bristol Fighter.The concept of training pilots to fly in a combat squadron is of course absurd but the director apparently thought it necessary as a plot device.French airmen learning to fly in a British airplane (Sopwith Strutter) is equally absurd.For the real hair splitters, the Gotha and some triplanes have the straight-edged Balkan crosses that appeared two years later.
In 1916, a group of young American volunteers join the French Air Force under the command of Captain Georges Thenault (Jean Reno) to fight the Germans in World War I.
This sets you up with anticipation that the filmmakers have developed this film aiming for authenticity, recreating what it was like to be the first fighter pilots in the first modern war.
For the first time films makers have the tools with CGI to truly accurately portray the visceral effects of WWI dog fighting to put the audience right back into the thick shell smoked 1916 western front.However they fall VERY short of the mark because through their obsession with their aerial money shots, they seem to have forgotten the human story of the true horrors of combat and what it does to the human soul.
The filmmakers have also made no effort to research their period, without creating any spoilers there is some truly ludicrous almost James Bond like action set pieces that take away all sense that you are watching a realistic war film.
The bi-planes might as well have afterburners and laser beams and fly into space, the film wouldn't be any less believable and probably a lot more interesting.This is nothing more than a boys own story; where the first casualty is truth or realism.
This isn't one of them.Don't know why I'm posting this as it coming this late no one will be reading this, but I've got to get this off my chest because I've heard so many people say great things about this movie and I'm not just a little disappointed.
The young men who flew them became the first fighter pilots and a new kind of hero was born." The adventures of the Lafayette Escadrille, young Americans who volunteered for the French military before the U.S. entered World War I, and became the country's first fighter pilots.
Among them , Blaine Rawlings (James Franco) , Eugene Skinner (Abdul Salis) , William Jensen (Philip Winchester), Beagle (David Ellison) and Reed Cassidy (Martin Henderson , Reed was mainly inspired by Raoul Lufbery whose personal insignia is an eagle's head surrounded by the words "Je Vois Tout" meaning "I see all") , the leading flying ace of the Escadrille Squadron (similarly to film , the real Lafayette Escadrille actually had a pair of lion cubs as mascots).Spectacular dogfighting , colorful scenario , all-star cast and memorable acting .
Special mention to Abdul Salis whose character of Skinner is based on the Escadrille-pilot Eugene Bullard, an American who has gone to France and worked as a boxer there, he was also a son of a slave, just like Skinner .Rousing aerial scenes spectacularly staged , though in excessive use of digital effects , being the first movie to motion capture planes.
Seriously, this movie is just a piece of expensive trash.Only thing really worth looking is probably the beautiful scenes of nature and nice places & people around.
In this movie, it doesn't matter if pilot rises or drops plane, it doesn't lower or raise his speed a bit.And there's a terribly stupid scene with protagonist's gun jamming while enemy is at gunpoint.
But why is the chosen topic war and why not skip all that lousy plane thing, just make another movie about nice nature and love?And why, oh why did director do strange attempts at discussing something serious, like racism, social classes, mourning, war refugees, etc?
It seems to me that in my past readings of world war one German aircraft that the Fokker triplane was a plane that was given only to the better aces ( or those pilots who were very wealthy ) because they were difficult to fly ( but could out turn allied planes).
A truly exciting movie from the standpoint of action and special effects.An older film called The Blue Max starring George Peppard was very authentic to the aircraft used in World War One..
I was curious to see how a World War One flying film would benefit from CGI, but I was unprepared for the sheer sloppiness of historical detail and lack of dramatic imagination that afflicted FLYBOYS.
To see where all the clichés came from -- and to see them portrayed much more convincingly -- I would suggest checking out the three finest World War One flying films ever made: (1) Howard Hughes' HELL'S ANGELS, which contains some horrid acting but is breathtaking for its sheer spectacle and 1930 technical achievement; (2) Edmund Goulding's DAWN PATROL, from 1938, with Errol Flynn and David Niven as the quintessential, stoic flying dead men of the RFC (and with incredible aerial footage from the first DAWN PATROL, directed by Howard Hawks in 1930); and (3) John Guillermin's THE BLUE MAX, from 1966, an imperfect but gorgeously photographed film with interesting characters, some impressive aircraft reproductions and flying sequences, and a great Jerry Goldsmith score..
Flyboys is set in the area of the Great War 1914 - 1918 and the hope of getting historical information presented in a nice movie with detailed characters was very high on my side.
Sadly the 'flying scenes' which were billed as amazing were less than an early version of a basic flight simulator from the 80's with lazy animation, every German plane being a red tri-plane (easy to copy for the cgi boys I guess) flying in ways that defy the laws of physics let alone the ability of the aircraft of the time.Save your money, I could go on about the romance but it's too bad to mention, how anyone funded this script is beyond me, even more sadly this film was released, which shows what a terrible situation there must be in the US industry at the moment.Watch something else instead..
Despite the knowledge of knowing that the Germans had better planes, weapons, and pilots, as well as the life expectancy for a fighter pilot being only three to six weeks, they trained for two months under the command of French Captain Thenault, played by Jean Reno and the guidance of veteran Reed Cassidy, played by Martin Henderson.
Half of the movie is about war and screen time is spent on the fighting scenes and training camp.
Let's be real, people mainly go to see these war movies to be awed by the combat scenes; that's what will really grab the audience's attention.
It is hard to imagine someone making a bad film about the world's first fighter pilots, but they managed to pull it off with Flyboys.
It has all of the textbook ingredients of a disastrously botched war film  cheap special effects, moderately talented actors (except for the wasted talents of Jean Reno, who towers over the rest of the cast as though they were children), a stupid, stupid love story, and a director who could theoretically design exciting dogfighting scenes if he had the right special effects department and technology (which he doesn't) but who can't direct actors to save his life.I say that he can't direct actors, by the way, because every actor in the film seems to deliver a performance distantly below his or her potential (most notably Jean Reno and James Franco).
The movie as a whole is a disjointed mess, alternately swapping from intense aerial fight scenes to moody, contemplative in between scenes, where soldiers get drunk and mourn their fallen friends and sometimes discuss the meaning of life and death and battle and war and camaraderie and love and whatnot.What is really disappointing about the movie is that the dogfight scenes are by far the best thing that the film has going for it, but they screw it up by allowing pilots to fly alongside each other and give congratulatory nods to each other after each kill, and of course the leaders of each side have time to fly in circles and give each other dirty looks before trying to shoot each other down.
And it doesn't help that they try to force this preposterous romance between Franco and a French girl, whose 9-year-old nephews try to teach her English, yet all she can get out is "How you are?" Maybe it's because I'm an English teacher myself, but it always drives me crazy when I see movies that feature characters who don't speak a word of English, then after a few shots of them practicing a line or two or reading from a book, in the next scene they speak nearly perfect English, they just keep their accent.
At least the movie attempts to right the romantic wrong in the closing credits, but that doesn't change what we've seen so far.The film does have its moments, the first 30 minutes or so are fairly entertaining, but overall it is a big-budget B-movie, at best.
My only real criticism is for people who made movies like Pearl Harbor, and Alexander who have an agenda of putting their lifestyle into the characters so we end up with a effeminate Alexander eying what looks like Howard Stern in drag or a couple of Jet setters out of the bar circuit in Hollywood acting like they are 1955 teenagers in a 1943 war movie as in Pearl Harbor with a leading lady who is right off the real TV date shows, juggling 2 Bo's.
It reminded me of the classic silent movie, Hell's Angels.As for the planes themselves, I was thrilled to see an S.E.5a, all the Nieuports (11's & 17's), Gotha and Hanley-Page bombers and even Bleriot's flying machine in the introductory scenes at the aerodrome, though why the plane that Louis Bleriot made the historic first crossing of the English Channel with in 1909 would be found at a combat airfield seven years later I have NO idea.
I have been a pilot since I was 16, and flying is something quite important to me, and I was so hopeful that this would be a decent film about some incredible young men on both sides of this terrible war.
But, as luck would have it, my wife brought it home for me one night so I thought I'd give it a go.As everyone knows, the story surrounds members the Lafayette Escadrille who volunteered to fly for France before America's entry into WW IYep, it's full of all the usual clichés and stereotyped characters, but I'm here for the planes so I don't care; I'll put up with it.
Sometimes, the film is even better than I anticipated....and that's the case here.I thought it was a classy film: beautifully photographed, with interesting characters, excellent action scenes in the air with the World War I bi-planes and tri-planes, and a subtle and sweetly-told romance.
However, he was still the main target.The aerial-battle scenes are very good, probably the best-ever shown on film but with today's ever-improving cameras, techniques, special-effects with computer knowledge, it's no surprise the flying scenes looked so good.
Later on, events with her (I don't want to give details away for those who haven't seen it) allow us to see how the movement of ground troops is affecting the people, and changes the type of action.Therefore, while the romance itself lent a greater depth of empathy to our main character in several ways, the character of his girlfriend enables the film to move in directions it would otherwise have been unable to explore.So there :-b ;) Liana.
Since the movie is historical in nature, getting some of the history right would have been nice.The biggest problem I saw was the German Air Force.
According to the movie, however, every plane in the German Air Force was the Red Baron.There is tremendous literature on this, including the Journal of Richthofen himself, his brothers' writing, even Goerring, who commanded the squadron at the end of the war, explained this.There are other problems, including the performance abilities of the planes, which look good on film, but would not have happened in the air..
I'm sorry that this film was not successful at the box office, for director Tony Bill and his massive crew do a fabulous job of storytelling, and I am proud and unashamed to add it among my favorite war movies of all time.
Flyboys is a WWI action/drama inspired by the Lafayette Escadrille, a French Air Service squadron comprised largely of American Soldiers.
But the way it's put by him and in the newsreel at the beginning of the movie (the scene is complete with women tearing up at the carnage on screen, but apparently not horrified at the idea that their own men could be dragged into that foolish and horrifying war) makes it sound like an unarguable, everybody-knows-that-now point.
As a pilot of 27 years experience and an avid aviation history and aviation movie viewer, I had to cringe at the "Hollywood-ized" treatment of the story of the Lafayette Escadrille...meaning that historical accuracy takes a back seat to special effects and old-formula war movie routine.
Many of the events in the film do reflect, in fact, episodes from the history of the Lafayette Escadrille, a fighter group of volunteer American pilots formed at the time of the Battle of Verdun (early 1916) to fight for France.
Rather than preach one way or the other about atrocities or necessities of war, Flyboys simply sets out to give us a brief glimpse at a forgotten group of heroes from a war that Hollywood has neglected for the past 40 years, all while entertaining audiences with a unique look at the aerial combat that military and aviation historians have come to call "the last gentleman's war." If you want a more in-depth historical study regarding the events portrayed in the film then I'm sure there's a documentary or two out there.
Not to mention the 1950's Hollywood Indians, dressed up to represent the German Army in this case, and nearly every stereotypical war movie dialogue cliché that you can think of.Add to that really good looking CGI aeroplanes that, however, perform impossible manouevres; a story that's so poorly written that it's flatter than Norfolk; no character development whatsoever; acting so poor that it's laughable (especially James Franco who has the dramatic ability of a spoon); a complete disregard for anything historical about the Lafayette Escadrille except the name, and a complete lack of historical research then you have this terrible mess of a film.I gave it 2 out of 10 because at least they tried to make a film about a neglected subject, but this film falls so far short of any of its objectives, especially that of being entertaining, that it's as if the last 50 years of film-making had passed the director and crew by without being noticed.
Especially for us men who enjoys a good war film.
First of all, it makes you feel like a little boy again, when you nudged your friend beside you, and said, "that is my favorite fly-boy".The movie doesn't have that usual Hollywood crudeness, and it actually lived up to its historical counter-part..
I can imagine what this film might have been...however, I sadly saw what it actually did become.Not sure why every German fighter plane was red....or was a Fokker Dr.I. Cliché-ridden interactions between underdeveloped characters followed by often silly, and improbable action scenes - ie.
Prior to the US entering WW I (The Great War) it appears there were some Americans who went to France to fly bi-planes against the Germans.
They are part of a fighting unit new to the whole world - the aerial combat unit.From the very first scene to pretty much the last this is a movie that is good for entertainment.
The plot of the movie is quit exciting, but the end can be guessed, if you are fond of military films and war history.
Flyboys is the story of some pilots in the Lafayette escadrille, WWI, and their exploits, with historic and flying accuracy..
"Fly Boys" is an exciting movie portraying the flying exploits of volunteer American pilots in the Lafayette escadrille of France during WWI.
After you start the first air combat scene, you really get a feel for what these pilots went through.Basically I really like the action.
FLYBOYS is a pleasure to watch - going back into World War I history that deals with actual events yet takes the time to introduce unforgettable characters and romantic situations while giving the viewer a spectacular view of the first flying fighter planes.