efftup

I enjoyed this film because I am really into aeroplanes and like to get an aerial dogfight fix from time to time.

BUT, this is your typical Hollywood blockbuster, full of cardboard characters, ridiculous looking CGI effects and ludicrous plot holes.

This is loosely based on a real story. There was a real squadron of mostly US Pilots flying for France. There was a real black US Fighter pilot flying in France at that time (not in the actual squadron) and someone really DID have a Lion for a pet.

But you basically get everything you expect of this type of film. Hackneyed, clichéd stereotype characters, ridiculous romantic subplot, silly implausible flying sequences, and of course, ridiculous amounts of historical inaccuracies.

The Germans all flying Red Baron style Fokker Triplanes I think has been explained as making it readily easy to identify between the French and German planes, but I think that's the usual Hollywood trick of treating your audience like morons.A French Nieuport 17 and a German Albatros are sufficiently different in shape and standard colouring that most audience members NOT familiar with planes could still tell the difference. That is far from the only anachronistic thing in the film either.

I own the DVD (paid £1) and the special features shows that the director actually filmed footage of real WWI Aircraft flying. Why he bothered is a mystery because he completely ignores all this for ridiculous physics defying flight characteristics in most flying sequences. While they are enjoyable and a non plane buff might not notice, they do come across more like a video game than anything approaching real life.

The Romance is mired by the implausibility of how quickly the French woman learns English, and the fact the US Pilot seems to be able to use his plane to just go off on a whim for a tryst with his loved one but is otherwise believable.

Other characters often do some really out of character and implausible things too, but the pilot landing his plane in the middle of No man's land to rescue his friend without first strafing the German trench from the air to minimise the amount of shooting in his direction and then cutting off his colleagues hand rather than just digging out enough dirt to free it is one of my favourites.

Some of the acting is actually quite good, notably the ever reliable Jean Reno as the Captain and Martin Henderson as the veteran pilot. The Chivalrous German pilot is a nice contrast to the "evil" one and the racism stuff is dealt with well and succinctly. Implausible though the flying sequences are for the most part, there aren't TOO many actual explosions and they are enjoyable to watch, but they are interspersed with the slow dragging romance.

Basically it isn't an awful film, but it's not really a good one either, and if done properly, could have been so much better. If you love Michael Bay Films, you'll probably like this, or if you are a plane junkie who wants his flying fix,or a bit of a laugh, or both, then it's worth watching, otherwise, probably best to stay clear.

This is a made for TV movie and due to budget restraints all the flight footage is reused from the Iron Eagle films. Hence Israel has to pass for Nevada.

So I originally went into this not expecting too much but wanting an aerial film fix.

Despite what one or two other reviewers have said, this has a very believable plot (especially compared to Iron Eagle films)and the acting was very good. The reviewer who thinks it's totally ridiculous to land a plane on a road and take off again needs to Google the Swiss and Swedish Air Forces

An ace aggressor squadron pilot has some kind of breakdown and decides to shoot down his fellow pilots and attack Las Vegas with a Nuclear weapon.

Spoiler ALERT+++++++++++++++++++++++++++ At first, this might seem a little ridiculous, but the way he achieves all this actually all seems very plausible. Far more so than the way the kids get everything Chappie asks for in Iron Eagle. He holds someone at gunpoint to get live weapons programmed, brushes off concerns by the armourer who loads the plane and then has to dismantle the nuclear weapon with the aid of a stolen wiring diagram,getting radiation sickness in the process (but as he's on a suicide mission, he doesn't care.) END OF SPOILER ++++++++++++++++++++++++++

William O'Leary puts in a good performance as the cold, disturbed pilot,and Peter Strauss is pretty good as the older pilot and mentor who is eventually forced to take on his protégé.

While the pace is a little slow in paces (especially if you are used to the moronic modern Whizzbang Hollywood rubbish),the plot isn't totally predictable and no-one does anything out of character. The Flight sequences are pretty well edited, especially considering that they are cut together from an entirely different film. This obviously lends itself to a few continuity errors but I think that's forgivable in this context. They are no worse than in bigger budget films like Top Gun.

Overall, I found it a very enjoyable and well made film, and one I would certainly recommend, even to those who aren't that into planes. The complete opposite of a film like Flyboys.

I'll start off by saying this film is in Norwegian with subtitles.If you can't cope with that, you'll just have to wait for the inevitable big budget but much worse American remake and you will seriously lose out.

A student film crew, trying to make a documentary about what they believe to be an illegal bear hunter,find out he's actually hunting trolls for the government who want their existence kept quiet.

This is another monster film using the "found footage" plot device. Where "Cloverfield" was too slick and had insanely idiotic moments (like the cameraman still holding the camera while fighting off deadly creatures and somehow taping over a previous film on a digital memory card,) and its low budget rip off "Monster" was just too shaky and almost unwatchable, Trollhunter gets the balance just right.

The student film crew, while not getting hugely developed characterisation are very believable and the Trollhunter himself is absolutely spot on.

This relatively low budget film manages, with a bit of careful thought and humour to give new explanations for mundane bits of real landscape, and therefore manages to have enough money to let the special effects, while not the best you've ever seen, look very believable.

It really felt at times like I was actually watching real documentary footage.

This film has genuinely tense moments, even though with some of the troll folklore it has to shoehorn in, it can't take itself too seriously The bit at the very end is absolutely priceless. I would heartily recommend it