For me this movie was a bit of a surprise. After hearing so much bad things about it, I was expecting the absolute worst. However if you simply take this movie as entertainment, like it was meant as, this movie is simply a real good and fun one, to be perfectly honest.
Seems to me that really the foremost reason why most people are hating on this movie is because it takes the historical story of the Tuskegee airmen and turns it into some overblown and over-the-top entertainment. But call me crazy, wouldn't it be exactly the same to hate on "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Inglourious Basterds" or "The Dirty Dozen" for the very same reason that it it turns WW II into entertainment. Or even better said; hate on "The Great Escape" or "Enemy at the Gates" because it takes a true WW II story and turns it into entertainment, instead of into a history lesson. And besides, this movie was never advertised in any way as a serious or historical WW II movie, so I just really don't understand why some people were obviously still expecting that from this movie.
It simply is being a silly, over-the-top, action flick, with an all black cast in it. That means it has a simple story in it, mostly one dimensional characters and lots of silly dialog and crazy, far from realistic, situations, which I believe was all done intentionally, also to give the movie a more old fashioned kind of feeling to it. This is really where all of the movie its fun and entertainment value comes from.
Visually it perhaps is a bit of a mixed bag at times. The one moment the effects for all of the action and dogfights are something truly amazing and spectacular, while at others it's far from convincing. It's almost as if they ran out of time or money at times and simply had to hand things in, in order to get this movie released in time. But overall this obviously really couldn't ruin the whole movie experience for me.
It is also definitely true that the movie is lacking some emotional impact at times. It's because the characters, no matter that some of them are being played by some great actors, aren't that well developed and the story at times isn't buildup that well. So it really all together is not a great movie but the good news still is that the entertainment value really compensates a lot and I can honestly say this was one of the more entertaining, new, movies I have seen in a long while.
So me advise to you is to go into this movie expecting a good and fun time and please don't expect to be educated or get any sort of realism out of this movie. This way you will surely be able the appreciate the movie for what it is and won't feel cheated of offended by it afterward. If you want to know more about the Tuskegee airmen, this movie is not the one to go to and you are really better off reading a book, or watching a documentary about them instead.
7/10
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