Many of those very old aviation war films look pretty cheesy by today's cinematic standards. Heck, take a look at episodes of "Baa, Baa, Blacksheep"; the only combat scenes that weren't completely silly were actual WWII combat footage. What makes a good movie/TV show is good writing, good acting, and believable story lines (part of good writing, actually). I'll probably go see this, and hope that it's better written/directed/acted that PH. For what it's worth, I enjoyed the way "Midway" managed to blend actual combat footage with actors filmed in static cockpits. Unfortunately, there's very little aerial footage from the Japanese air assault on China, on finding flying examples of most of the A/C involved is problematic (if not impossible). Give it a chance.
