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Flyboys

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Sunday, 16th December 2007

  I watched this film for the first time a couple of days ago and I was quite impressed with the accuracy of the aircraft portrayed. They took one or two liberties, no doubt for artistic and commercial reasons, but it was such a change to see WW1 aircraft which were not simply Tiger Moths with a paint job. CGI obviously helped create the dogfight scenes but the effect of the speed and ccnfusion of air warfare was pretty impressive.
  
  I know one could nit pick on certain aspects but overall, I thought it was quite well done. That doesn't necessarily make it a great film and, for me, it's not in the same call as The Blue Max, but for historical accuracy of the aircraft, it was better than anything else I recall seeing.
  
  Anyone else seen it?

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by colonelblimp (U1705702) on Sunday, 16th December 2007

  I went to see it when we were on holiday - I might not have bothered normally but it had been raining nonstop for two days and we were looking for something to do. I enjoyed it and I agree about the accuracy of the aircraft - you could nitpick about the likelihood of combat between massed Nieuports and Fokker Triplanes but that would be a bit of an "anorak" criticism. The confusion of the dogfights was in the spirit of the well-known (albeit now generally accepted as faked) air combat photos originally published in "Death in the Air" between the wars.
  
  Characterisation was a bit weak, though, especially on the German side. I'm not sure that any of the Germans had a single word of dialogue in the entire film. Certainly their leader didn't: he just sneered contemptuously in pantomime villain mode (the actor bore a remarkable resemblance to my sister-in-law's husband, which added to the entertainment value as far as I was concerned!). And the French lieutenant was surely modelled on the policeman from "'Allo, 'Allo". I think it's very much a contemporary version of the 1930s flying epics like "Hell's Angels" and "The Dawn Patrol", which were much the same in this regard: I recall one of them featured a villain called "Von Richter" (now, who could that have been an allusion to....?), who even had his name helpfully painted in large letters under the cockpit so the audience got the cue to hiss when he was shown in close up. If you take it on those terms, it succeeds brilliantly and it's great fun.

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