Flyboys

The movie's straightforward and ingratiating, and as pretty-boy history lessons go, it's a lot less obnoxious than "Pearl Harbor."Read Full Review »

While the music slops and churns and the ground-level bathos rises, the aerial stuff is occasionally stirring.Read Full Review »

Despite its empty head and arduous length, Flyboys is ever so nice, in the manner of a Norman Rockwell illustration. The director, Tony Bill, may not be a philosopher but he is a gentleman, moving things along with a tidy, well-mannered hand. In another context, such politesse might feel tonic. Given the state of things, it’s nearly toxic.Read Full Review »

Shot like a Disney period piece (prettily, with spiffy props, shiny vintage vehicles, and costumes just back from the cleaners), Flyboys introduces its squadron the old-fashioned way: with character-establishing setups.Read Full Review »

Here is the War to End All Wars seen from on high--as it was way back when, in "Wings" or the Howard Hughes "Hell's Angels"--a world apart from the grim, futile slaughterhouses of Verdun and the Marne. Among these combatants, you won't find much "All Quiet on the Western Front"–style despair, and the paths of glory are unsullied by doubt or disillusionment.Read Full Review »

This is a lost opportunity on an epic scale. The actors are so styled and the dogfights so drippy with CG that, as a period piece, the movie almost looks like it's set in the future.Read Full Review »

Flyboys doesn't succeed as a wartime adventure story or as a period romance. Even the special effects, set in a historical context, are too ho-hum to save this over-long and tedious film.Read Full Review »