[ApexAtThe Movies] Why RED TAILS climbs like an angel, but can't stick the landing...

[ApexOversteer]

I'm going to give it to you straight. Red Tails is a bad TV movie with big budget production values.


The Good:

If there is one thing that Lucasfilm and ILM can do, it's bring the eye candy. I will admit that twice physics were tossed out the window and WWII airplanes did things that no aircraft can do, even in today's world of Eurofighters, F-22's and SU-27's. That said, never before in the history of cinema has aerial combat looked this real or this beautiful. The aerial combat scenes are the reason I'll be buying this on DVD when it comes out. The CGI is fantastically accurate and nearly invisible, and it is only in the scant seconds when Newton rolls his eyes that we approach the uncanny valley. Bravo ILM.

In fact, I can say that Red Tails is a gorgeous film, through and through. The settings, the costumes, the props are all spot on and exist as pure eye candy for the history buffs.

I can also say that the actors, to a man, were excellent. Sadly, great performances from these young men, and a seriously strange, but good, performance from Cuba Gooding Jr., aren't enough to save the day. They do cut a great profile on screen, though.

If only it were a silent film...



The Bad:

To say the dialog is cliched is a vast understatement. This film plays like it was the first attempt at a screenplay by a 16 year old. Actually, it isn't even that good.

Mind-numbingly simple, the entire cast is reduced to a squadron of Captain Obviouses, never offering us a look into their character, merely stating that which we already know because we just saw it happen. Yes, I said earlier the performances were great, and they are, the actors are just given nothing to do with those performances.

We are never challenged emotionally and are instead led around by our noses and pandered to. We only hear exactly what we expect to hear.

It isn't just the dialog, either. At no point in the film are we surprised anything happens. it all goes like this; combat, racism scene, love story scene, racism scene, inspiration speech, combat, repeat. By the third time we go round the carosel like this, the film becomes tiresome.

The love story is so ridiculously tacked on as an afterthought to be laughable. Honestly, the entire love story is half a dozen 30 second scenes in a 2 hour and 5 minute movie.

The whole thing plays like the film makers bought a "WWII movie model kit" and put it together exactly by the instructions, but then didn't bother to paint it, weather it and put it in a diorama.

The editing of scenes on the ground is "WTF" bad. Conversations are cut off in the middle of what you think will be some revelation of a character's motivation, leaving you going "is he gonna do it or not", and then we never get back to that moment and any emotional value placed on the characters is lost.

The score is the most obvious and heavy handed attempt at emotional manipulation that I've seen in a very long time. It inappropriately clues us into things that would have surprised us, if the composer hadn't held up a big sign saying "BAD THING ABOUT TO HAPPEN" every time something bad was about to happen.

I came out of the theater tonight, elated at how fantastically the film portrays the combat, iand disgusted at the fecal matter the rest of the film truly is.

If anything this film proves to me, once and for all, that George Lucas is the world's greatest action scene choreographer, and the world's worst writer, editor and director.

American Graffiti and Star Wars are simply proof that even a blind rat finds the cheese occasionally.

[boracayjohnny]

This sounds similar that goober of a movie Pearl Harbor. PH was a huge swing and a miss.

[themonk]

I watched Tuskegee Airmen last week, thought it was a great movie and there's a scene where the pilots go to Germany to fight and Larry Fishbourne (sp) asked one of the maintenance guys to paint the tails of their planes red.

[VatorMan]

Like i said before-JarJar Binks in a P51.

[BuckyThreadkiller]

Cool CGI with a predictable story and moronic dialog - so, it's a typical George Lucas film?

[Drew M]

I loved it. I went for the dogfight scenes, and that's what I got.

I expected the poor dialog, poor cgi (at times), and the predictable love story.

I had 2 disappointments. First were the cockpit camera angles when the planes were rolling. The ground outside the plane should have rotated, not the cockpit itself. I understand it was dumbed down but it was too much. The second was the fact that Neyo (Smokey) wasn't allowed to sing anything worthwhile. He sang 15 seconds and the song wasn't anything special.

[onedef92]

Did John Williams pen the soundtrack? That's another reason to get it. Sounds like Redbox rental chatter, though, on the real.....

[TxAg]

All hat and no cattle apparently.