In 1914; "The Great War" - WWI - began in Europe. By 1917; the
Allied powers of France; England; Italy and others were on the
ropes against the German juggernaut. Some altruistic young
Americans disagreed with the war. They volunteered to fight
alongside their counterparts in France; some in the infantry;
some in the Ambulance Corps. A handful of others had a different
idea: they decided to learn how to fly. The first of them - a
squadron of only 38 - became known as the Lafayette Escadrille.
This is their story. Forced to abandon his family's ranch; Blaine
Rawlings finds his future in a newsreel chronicling the
adventures of young aviators in France. At a small train station
in rural Nebraska; William Jensen promises to make his family
proud. In New York; spoiled Briggs Lowry embarks on a
trans-Atlantic passage. Meanwhile; in France; black expatriate
boxer; Eugene Skinner; vows to repay his debt to his adopted
racially tolerant country. Together; these American boys arrive
at an aerodrome in France; eager to learn how to fly. What they
didn't realize was that they were about to embark on a great;
romantic adventure; becoming the world's first combat pilots.
.com
----
World War I aviation action gets an impressive digital upgrade in
Flyboys, a welcome addition to the "dogfight" sub-genre that
includes such previous war-in-the-air films like Hell's Angels,
Wings, and The Blue Max. While those earlier films had the
advantage of real and genuinely dangerous flight scenes
(resulting, in some cases, in al accidents during production),
Flyboys takes full (and safe) advantage of the digital
revolution, with intensely photo-realistic recreations of WWI
aircraft, authentic period structures, and CGI environments
requiring a total of 850 digital effects s, resulting in an
abundance of amazing images, many of them virtually
indistinguishable from reality. Unfortunately, the film's
technical achievement is more impressive than its screenplay,
which conventionally and predictably tells the fact-based story,
set in France in 1916, of the daring young pilots of the
Lafayette Escadrille, a pioneering French air-combat unit that
welcomed American enlistees prior to the United States' entry
into the war.
There's a familiar cliché to match every thrilling scene of
aerial combat, but director Tony Bill manages to keep it all
interesting, from the romance between a young American maverick
(James Franco) and a pretty French girl (newcomer Jennifer
Decker) to the exciting action in the air, which includes a stock
variety of heroes (many of them composites of real-life WWI
pilots) and an intimidating villain known only as "The Black
Falcon," whose Fokker Dr-1 triplane (one of many in the film)
recalls the exploits of German "ace of aces" Manfred von
Richtofen, the dreaded "Red Baron" of legend. With impeccable
production values that will impress even the most nit-picking
aviation buffs, Flyboys (like Superman Returns and Apocalypto,
also released in 2006) was also one of the first feature films to
be with Panavision's state-of-the-art Genesis digital
cameras, resulting in beautiful images that meet or exceed the
visual nuance of film. Flyboys also benefits from painstaking
attention to physical detail, making it easier to forgive its
shortcomings as a generic and formulaic slice of romanticized
history. So while some viewers may have wished for a more
realistic and grown-up depiction of the Lafayette Escadrille,
it's safe to say that Flyboys will be thrilling its target
audience for many years to come. --Jeff Shannon
Extras from Flyboys
Director Tony Bill on Filming Dogfight Sequences
( http://broadband.foxhome.com/flyboys/011207/flyboys_dogfight_hi.wmv )
...On throwing away the script for pilot training
( http://broadband.foxhome.com/flyboys/011207/flyboys_trainingsequence_hi.wmv )
...On the real-life stunt pilot who stars in the film
( http://broadband.foxhome.com/flyboys/011207/flyboys_orientation_hi.wmv )
Beyond Flyboys
More "War in the Sky" Films (
/s/ref=sr_nr_n_14/103-7492749-8762258?ie=UTF8&rh=n%3A404276%2Cn%3A586156%2Cn%3A909814%2Cn%3A909830&page=1
)
SPA124 Lafayette Escadrille: American Volunteer Airmen in World
War 1 (
/dp/1841767522/sr=8-1/qid=1172083521/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7492749-8762258?ie=UTF8&s=books
)
More " and War" Films (
/b/ref=dp_brlad_entry/103-7492749-8762258?ie=UTF8&node=586156 )
Stills from Flyboys