It's The Mighty Ducks Meets The Red Baron

This must be the most 'under the radar' movie of this past year. Where the hell did it come from? I've recognised the name many times, but I always took it for some stupid low budget movie about World War 1 pilots.
Instead, after I checked out the trailer, I was surprised to learn that it's a stupid high budget movie about World War 1 pilots.

First of all, I want to comment on the name. Flyboys ...is the worst title I've ever seen, especially so seeings as it's has it's context in WWI, an era in which they held a lot of class in anything they did. They called deadly brigades of bombers 'Flying Circuses' and wore completely unsparing swimmers, which they called 'trunks' or 'costumes'. In a time of such eloquance, where did the fucking stupid name of Flyboys come from? It sounds like something that a group of lamoids would name their team at a trivia night.

The title aside, the trailer shows that the film is constantly fighting an aerial battle with itself, as to whether it's good or bad. For example, on the good team, the special effects look mind-blowing. Loved the colourful and fully-lit dogfights, the bombings and the on foot explosions. Loved it all. It really, really surprised me how awesome the action of this film looks. But of course, as an good physicist will tell you, for every action movie, there is an equal and opposite spurt of shitty dialogue.
I mean, even from the trailer, I can tell the script is just appalling. It's a typical asanine Hollywood deal, which is a shame, because the film is made by MGM, which I think deserves way more success and quality than it's been recieving. (Casino Royale will change all that though. Won't it!) There's talent in the direction, and obviously in storyboarding and putting together a vision for those brilliant looking air-battles, but everything else smells of the decomposing corpses of James Franco's post-Spiderman 2/pre-Spiderman 3 movies.

When will anyone learn that James Franco is too weak to hold an entire movie up over his head. Annapolis, remember that? Exactly. Tristan and Isolde. I bet more people went to see the ballet on the day that film was released. Just because he's in Spiderman doesn't mean everything he lends himself to will be in the top 10 most successful movies of all time list. Enough with James Franco already.
Oh, and enough with trying to get me to believe that there were really nice guys in the airforce that weren't racist towards blacks in the 1930s. And that a guy can run away from an exploding blimp.... whilst on top of the blimp.... whilst it's still in midflight.... What!? You really have to see it to understand how stoopid it is.

Somehow the differing ideals and integrity get confused when bridging between the 1930s and the 2000s. I wish I lived back then. I'd check out all the women in their swimsuits: aka aquatic dresses complete with stockings and corset.

Flyboys - MGM
Anticipation Level: Low-Medium.
Look out for: Great aerial action and special effects. You can't miss the little doomed man fleeing from a plane that has just plowed into the blimp he is on. I just can't get over that. He's on top of an exploding blimp at about 14,000 feet. Where's he running to, and how the eff is what he's doing even possible? Ahh, I feel like screaming, it's so fun and infuriating at the same time to think about how amazingly terrible that whole concept is!
US Release date: 22nd September, 2006.
Trailer Source