Flyboys: Rating: 1 stars

A group of expat Americans become ace fighters in WWI France.

Flyboys (2006)
2006 · PG-13 · Drama
Reviewed March 24, 2007

A tale of romance and adventure, set against the backdrop of war… but I just rented it for the flying machines, really. Unfortunately, I didn’t even get a decent plane fix; for a wannabe blockbuster, this movie has surprisingly cruddy special effects. The romance is bland, the subplots are blander, and even the dogfights are dull. It’s one of those movies that keeps hitting us over the head with the WAR BAD, WAR BAD, WARBADWARBAD message, yet blatantly encourages us to cheer every time a dirty Hun hurtles towards destruction, blasted to Hell by one of Our Boys. (But, of course, there’s no cheering when even the ugliest Yank screws up and gets gunned down.) James Franco spends a lot of time hunched over in his plane, wincing and turning away in manly horror as yet another two-dimensional character goes down in flames. I kept waiting for the zeppelin destruction that I’d seen in the trailers; when it finally came, it was ridiculously brief and cheaply done (and again, we’re supposed to cheer, but where do you think those Germans went when they leaped from the airship to escape the raging flames?). I watched it through to the end, but now I kind of wish I hadn’t — I should have winced and turned away in manly horror and thereby saved a few hours of my life.