Entertaining movie, I came in without high expectations, but I thought it was beautifully done. All the special effects and eye candy make it worth the big screen or future blue ray release - in the end it's what should draw most viewers in and someday would be nice to see in 3D maybe, but it's probabley not going to go there. They chose a good cast, each had some really great moment of acting, but I'm not a fan of hollydrama (which when you're filming an actor jammed into a simulated cockpit infront of a camera is bound to happen) so I might just be turned off to what were otherwise better scenes.
I don't really want to spoil any of it, I'll try my sincerest best, but otherwise its best to ignore any opinions until you see it yourself. I sincerely don't think most of us can find anything better to complain about than spending a couple hours and a few bucks to sit in a theater and looking at wonderfuly CGIed WWII aircraft.
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I defend the love story they put into it, they didn't "Pearl Harbor" it, but the end will definitely leave most feeling "corned".
They hollywooded/condensed the stages of the war campaign and these mens role and presence throughout it through and through, and for shoehorning a story expanding almost the entire timespan of the ETO, even for one unit, I thought it was well done. The history buffs will feel robbed to some degree , like I honestly do (is there ever "enough"? But seriously, with a lack of further information, you'd think the Tuskegee Airmen consisted of only 6-8 pilots and participated in only a handful of operations and two bomber escort missions throughout the majority of their time in Italy and the ETO), but I was expecting this (the best we can hope for is a 12+ hour HBO documentary, but you get all you can possibly get in less than 150-minutes).
Still the CGI and graphics were excelent, and a couple of the maneuvers were sometimes shown in a nice pretty, tight framed shots turning faster and tighter than possible, I'd rate it not AH, but not UFO.
The story itself... well, my friend who went with me put it best - if they were going for a classic WWII aviation movie/story, they missed the part where you need a single or greater-ultimate villain to climatically triumph over, and for hollywood... it was surprisingly anticlimatic. Yes there was "the german ace/flight leader", but they never referred to him or established him in relation to these pilots as any specific threat to them until it was no longer relevant - he was just one of the bad guys, maybe a little better than the rest, throughout. And the edited trailers/teasers for the film vilified the bigamous pentagon general/generals better than the movie too.
Probably the greatest and only real killjoy - and I'm sure Lucas will shortly be getting a long, detailed, and in-depth letter from gramps (Bustr) and others in our community about it - is someone mixed up the ballistics and lethality of the Mk108 30mm with the Browning .30cal... really bad. And that's just a shame, would of really underlined the lethality and fear instilled upon the 262 in allied buff crews, and upped the climatic victory factor if the viewer thought each 262 that the Tuskegee were portrayed shooting down was actually as capable and a lethal weapon against the buffs as they were.
It's late here, g'night, hope others add their thoughts on the movie as they go and gather them.
