I did. Even my wife and kids liked it. Yes, it was filled with cliches but I didn't care. The dogfighting action was excellent. Okay, so there were no James Masons in the movie, but the mediocre acting from a cast of relative unknowns was actually better than any performance George Peppard is capable of giving.

The French chick was absolutely scrumptious. Classic girl-next-door beautiful.

My opinion was that, unlike Pearl Harbor, the rest of the movie was just good enough that it did not detract from the dogfights. They still could have cut about 30 minutes of romance and especially "why we fight" philosophical discussions. Do the Hollywood types really think real airmen sit around the table talking about that stuff all the time?

No, they don't. That's why it's called a movie instead of a documentary. And the romance stuff was included (just like in Pearl Harbor) to try to make it a "date movie." The reason for doing that is to attract more chicks (more ticket buyers). It's all about putting butts in the seats. I'm not saying I enjoyed the romance, but as a wannabe screenwriter, I know that's why they do it. It's about revenue projections.

I guess. I don't know any females who want to go see Flyboys. And I know several military/ex-military tpyes who, seeing its ties to Pearl Haror, have decided not go see it based on their dislike of Pearl Harbor for (particularly) the overdone romance plot.

And seriously, who outside of Sundance wants to watch aviators talk for 15 minutes about how much they don't like the war their in in the middle of war movie?

True, Hollywood makes a lot of assumptions that don't prove to be accurate. But trying to attract a cross-over audience (chicks with their boyfriends/husbands) is the reason why they keep sticking in a huge romance subplot angle. All the studios don't do it (Saving Private Ryan) but a lot of 'em do. They do marketing projections and start to panic that only one demographic group will go to such and such a film. So they look around at each other and ask "What do we do?" The answer is always: "Put a black guy in the movie to attract black people; put in a romantic subplot so the chicks will dig the movie."

The major problem with this strategy in the case of Flyboys is they forget to cut snippets of the film for TV commercials and trailers in movie theaters to emphasize the romance so that women will see the commercials, think it's a romance instead of an action movie (Hollywood believes only young males are attracted to action movies) and agree to go with their boyfriend/husband when he suggests they see Flyboys. There was almost zero advertising of any kind for this movie, which is a major reason why it won't do well at the box office. No hype.

All good points guys and appreciated but how was the movie regarding the stuff we all want to know about? The air combat scenes, level of CGI, realism etc.

Not having had the time to see it yet, I'm interested in any opinions on whether its worth the price of a ticket.

The dog-fighting scenes were excellent. Much better than The Blue Max.

As long as you overlook some of the not quite
realstic flight models of the planes I think it
was great. Newports keeping up with Foker tri-
planes in a climb and Newports diving straight
at the ground and then pulling out and having
wings remaining is a bit of a stretch, lol.

Yeah, I could have gotten along with less romance
too but I'm sure my wife would have liked it less.

All in all this movie is worth seeing. I enjoyed
it.

Flyboys seens to be doing badly at the box office and has left some of the theaters here in the San Diego area, so I went to see it today before it disappeared altogether. I can back up the comments that there was a lot of Hollywood theatrics and impossible flight manuvers by both sides, but still very much the price of seeing it on the big screen. I was very impressed with the French scenery, The French look of the cities and people, and the air drone and all the planes and equipment: made me feel as if I was really there. The on-ground and in-flight graphics were stunning and very much believable if you could dismiss and look past the not-so-right flight model charteristics. The real planes and mock-ups were perfect. I found the fact that all the Fokkers were a Red Baron red and the bad-ass Fokker was the villan in black...........nice Hollywood touch. It was interesting that the 15-20 viewers in the theater with me applauded at the finish of the movie. I liked it so much that I will add the DVD when it comes out, to my collection.
Go and enjoy, BadBud

Correction: but still very much WORTH the price of seeing it on the big screen.
BadBud

My wife and I saw it tonight, and we both liked it. In fact, neither one of us were sure why critics are being so hard on it. What exactly were they expecting/comparing it too?

OK, so it didn't have a volleyball scene with hunky, shirt-less guys named Maverick, Goose, and Ice playing in the sand. (Don't get me wrong, I love "Top Gun", but that scene was useless... except perhaps to the women in the audience.. and maybe a few movie critics). "Flyboys", on the other hand, conveyed comradere based on friendship rather than one-upmanship and had a beautiful, historic, French backdrop, (as BadBud pointed out).

And, maybe it didn't have any nudity or graphic sex, (such as in "Basic Instict 2"); but it had good looking heroes/heroin and reminded you of what it was like to be (for those of you too "cool" to accept the satisfaction of this emotion, please cover your eyes) in love.

And sure, it didn't have calloused thugs, cussing, and graphic violence to the point of perversity (as in "Pulp Fiction"); but it depicted young men, some with dark pasts, facing the horror of war, and doing the best they could despite their fear, sadness, and other personal struggles.

So IMO, it was well balanced in its action, drama, romance, etc. and makes a decent family movie.

Well said......knot

I saw it last week in a 200 seat auditorium that was filled to 2/3rds. Most of the viewers were middle aged and up. Quite a few were in their late 60s and early 70s.... a few grand kids and the occassional boyfriend/girlfriend thrown in to boot.

Other than the typical 'conveniences' that movies like to employ, I thought it was a pretty decent movie. Nor did I expect 100% accuracy...(nor would I have really known)... so I wasn't dissappointed.

The only part of the romance I didn't like was the shared flight ala' Pearl Harbour. If they left that out I think the relation would have been a good plot point. I thought it was a good vehicle to demonstrate the upheaval the French citizens who were escaping the forward progress from the German army.

As someone who loves flight (like we all do) I really enjoyed Flyboys, and will also add it to my DVD collection.


edit:
...and the actress who played the heroine/love interest was a cutie. I'd meet her at the Eiffel Tower after the war.

....they director really nailed the atmosphere in the movie. I felt like I was in 1916 France.

I couldn't agree more. I was ready to leave my wife for that cute french girl. She was "girl-next-door" beautiful, without makeup, perfect teeth and pretensions. I would've gone back for her too. LOL. Ya gotta try at least, but I'm sure someone else snapped her up.

Yes, the movie had a ton of cliches: rich, spoiled guy looks down his nose at an "inferior" (the black guy) then becomes friends; a lout uses a racial slur and gets punched out; a guy leaves home with a smile assuming he'll return a hero but looses his nerve beform getting it back at the end; loner hero veteran guy lives only to avenge his dead friends while spouting wisdom about survival to the younger protagonist; young protagonist -a good ol' boy from Texas- ignores the prostitutes, falls for the only virgin in town and risks his life and breaks the rules to save her. All cliches that are most likely the root cause of the negative reviews from so-called professional critics.

I didn't care. I felt the movie was innocent, the flying thrilling, the French girl refreshingly attractive without makeup and capped teeth, and the ending satisfactory. I like the fact that even though there were no blacks in the Lafayette Escadrille, the movie was true to the fact that there was such terrible racism in America in the early 20th century that many black citizens did flee to places like France where they were treated more like human beings by the French than by their fellow (white) Americans. The filmmakers didn't pull any punches there.

Overall, very enjoyable film and I, too, will purchase the DVD.

I almost missed this one, I knew it was coming out soon, but did not see any major ads for it.

A couple of interesting things about this movie.

It was an independant movie, no huge studio behind it, hence no huge ad budget.

No huge stars, although some are well known (James Franco,Jean Reno).

They used a device in a aroebatic trainer to track its flight manuevers to use for the CGI aircraft.

The official website has a PC Game demo, seems to be based on Dawn of Aces, lol.

*********************************

The latest Flight Journal magazine has a nice article on the movies development.

Overall I enjoyed it.

Ya the love story was a stupid inclusion into the movie, Hollywood, lol.

Its sad that such a great era of flight has not been represented as well as all the others,and now when a new movie comes out that could have raised interest in it, it has handicapped itself with its own problems.

Indie film, no ad budget.

No big actors, they stated the movie cost 60 million to make and would have cost twice that if it had bigger stars. Thing is if it would have had bigger stars it would have had a much larger audience.

Obscure story line, not very many people have any idea of what transpired in WW1.

I think it will do very well in DVD sales, ut it sure did not do well in the box office. And I hope it doesnt dicourage others to make more WW1 titles.

yah i enjoyed the movie.. im 22 years old, but i musta got interested in ww1 aircrafts since i was 10 when my brother would play the original red baron on our 486 computer lol.

I really wish they could have pushed better advertising, im sure they woulda made more profits.