Flyboys 2006

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Flyboys is so schematic and contrived, you can anticipate exactly what scene is going to come next, and who will be the next to die in combat. Read more

Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times: The painstaking authenticity and appealing cast of Flyboys can't overcome the cloyingly formulaic nature of its story. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: A tie-in Flyboys video game is now available, designed to coincide with the film's release. I guarantee that script will be better than this one. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: The result guarantees a thrill a minute for all ages, and a few tears, too, in an old-fashioned kind of war movie with heart (in the best kind of tradition) that keeps you on the edge of your seat with your mouth wide open. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The aerial dogfights are thrilling, but the script seems to have been written by Snoopy. Read more

Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle: Besides some fine dogfight sequences, it often feels threadbare, just an exercise in recycling. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: Why make such a corny and incredibly predictable film? Read more

Bob Townsend, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Watching Flyboys, it's hard not to giggle and think of Snoopy vs. the Red Baron. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: It's as if director Tony Bill simply fished out a mothballed script from 1947 and filmed it without updating it for contemporary audiences. Read more

Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: Near the start of Flyboys, the squadron's grizzled vet hands suicide pistols to the new pilots, to be used if they find themselves in a no-win situation. Unfortunately, the audience is offered no such option. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: The movie's straightforward and ingratiating, and as pretty-boy history lessons go, it's a lot less obnoxious than Pearl Harbor. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: This is spectacle in the grand old style, a bygone shot of adrenaline and grace. Read more

Michael Booth, Denver Post: If the current legroom in economy class doesn't make you resent the birth of the Wright Brothers, Flyboys certainly will. Like a flight from New York to Los Angeles, it's bad and it's long. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Sometimes corn works. Sometimes it doesn't. Flyboys flops. Read more

Gregory Kirschling, Entertainment Weekly: This is a lost opportunity on an epic scale. The actors are so styled and the dogfights so drippy with CG that, as a period piece, the movie almost looks like it's set in the future. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: A good documentary might have been a far more interesting film to make. Read more

Mario Tarradell, Dallas Morning News: When Flyboys finally ends, a too-long 139 minutes later, there's a sense of emptiness, perhaps even disgust. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: Realized with a combination of vintage and replica aircraft, as well as elaborate CGI effects, the airborne sequences are duly awesome, if a tad monotonous. Ironically, the movie really takes off when it's on the ground. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: One wishes this particular version did more than make glancing references to the despair and disillusion that was as much a part of this particular war as the exploding dirigibles and officers' bonhomie. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The high-altitude combat is thrilling, and aviation buffs will thrill to all the pretty biplanes sailing through the clouds. But the characters are corny and the situations are cliched. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: Aafter a while -- there must be six major fights against unending numbers of German planes -- it feels like special effects run amok. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: It's watchable, but this was an epic tale deserving of a huge canvas and, frankly, a better director and actors. And a less simplistic script. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Bill Zwecker, Chicago Sun-Times: Those amazing young heroes from the second decade of the last century -- our first true fighter pilots -- deserve so much more than what's served up in this very disappointing attempt. Read more

Kate Taylor, Globe and Mail: The creators of Flyboys know no image too cliched, no narrative convention too exhausted and no psychological motivation too pat that it can't do service. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: This is old-school moviemaking, for better or worse, which means rat-a-tat dogfights in the sky combined with overripe romantic and social cliches on the ground. Read more

Time Out: Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: Despite the brutal dogfights and inevitable deaths, there's little gravity or resonance. Read more

Bill Gallo, Village Voice: Among these combatants, you won't find much All Quiet on the Western Front-style despair, and the paths of glory are unsullied by doubt or disillusionment. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: An inflated wannabe epic. Read more