Flyboys

"Flyboys" is a fairly tame movie that never quite builds a connection between the characters and the audience. Plus, in the end, this is just as much a romance movie as it is a war story.

James Franco stars as one of nearly a dozen Americans who go to France during World War I to learn how to fly airplanes in order to fight for the French. The United States has yet to enter the fray, and many of these guys are looking to either prove themselves to their families or, in Franco's case, to avoid the law. The idea of flying during wartime is brand new to everyone, as airplanes have only existed for a few years at this point. Each pilot is also given a pistol. Why a gun? This is one of three options to choose from if your plane is going down. You can either burn with the plane, shoot yourself in the head, or fall from thousands of feet. Parachutes have not been invented yet.

The Americans quickly learn how to fly, and just as quickly learn that this is more than an exciting adventure. Every time they go up to shoot down Germans, they come back having lost at least one of their own. Dealing with this, along with their own internal disagreements, is a struggle for each of them. There is, of course, the obligatory love interest when Franco falls in love with a French girl who is raising her three orphaned cousins.

While the aerial sequences are exciting, there are too few of them. At the same time, it is difficult to tell which pilot we're following in the air as they all start to look alike. Plus, we never get to know enough about the individual characters to care too much about them. The love story only slows the entire story down, and eventually goes nowhere. If nothing else, it does give you a great appreciation for what these guys were up against as they developed "modern" warfare and just how challenging it must have been. "Flyboys" is harmless entertainment that will be rentable when it comes out on DVD. I'd wait until then. I give it a B-.

"Flyboys" is rated PG-13 with a running time of 139 minutes.