A crew of African American pilots in the Tuskegee training program, having faced segregation while kept mostly on the ground during World War II, are called into duty under the guidance of Col. A.J. Bullard.
Lucas’ dream project crashes and burns due to thin characterization, hoary clichés and crude simplifications, making for a feeble tribute compared to Days of Glory, Rachid Bouchareb’s comparable 2006 drama about the Algerian contribution to the war.
George Lucas honours the African-American heroes of ww2 with a popcorn memorial that’s as eye-saucering as it is shamelessly corny.
The dogfights are exceptionally well done but the dialogue feels ripped from the pages of Victor, and the attempts to tackle America’s racist past are horribly heavy-handed.
While this all-black war film shows some of the Star Wars man's old radicalism, it's still full of cliches, one-dimensional characters and CGI dogfights.
The story of how an all-black squadron overcame bigotry and won their wings in the Second World War should be an inspiring one, and in the air there’s certainly spectacle worthy of a Star Wars dogfight. On the ground, however, the script seems to be as gung-ho as a corny John Ford war pic.
This has great action, an affable cast and an inspirational story. But given its subject, it could have been so much more.
Alas, while it’s occasionally exciting, like everything else in the film, a sense of over-familiarity makes it seem all too pedestrian – and that’s the last thing a movie like this should be.
The brave airmen of the Tuskegee really deserve a better tribute than this.
Like many films honouring the memory of honourable minorities in the grim days before civil rights, this George Lucas-produced war epic is an insomnia cure.
Excels in the sky but not on the ground.
All in, not so much a wartime Top Gun as a fair to average actioner.
Competent aerial war flick.
What a missed opportunity.
The storytelling style is naïve in the extreme but the film works well enough as an old fashioned action adventure while casting new light on an episode in wartime history that has been ignored.
The true story of the Tuskegee Airmen, a squadron of African-American second world war flying aces, is one of those amazing tales that you just couldn't make up. Unfortunately, this George Lucas-produced retelling plays like it was made up, and with very little care.
A vital story that everyone should know about has been semi-fictionalised and adorned with every verbal and dramatic cliche known to Hollywood.
Disappointment gives way to frustration at this botched opportunity to tell an important story properly.
Craig Hammack
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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