Review of Red Tails (2012) by Cole M — 21 Jun 2012

It feels like a made-for-TV movie except with a bigger budget. It's full of cliches and predictability and it tries to be this uber-patriotic, rousing, inspirational film but gets caught up in wanting to be and even blatantly copying "Flyboys" in its subplot of a pilot falling in love with a foreign girl.

The acting is wooden at times. The overuse of CGI makes some scenes exhilarating while other scenes look like a flash in the pan. The dialogue feels very old-fashioned harkening back to something Disney use to produce or a movie you'd find on Turner Classic Movies. And while George Lucas said it took them 20 years to get this script off the ground, first having five separate scripts/stories they could've told and compiling it into a larger piece, this still doesn't feel like it at times is in flight but still grounded, and Lucas, as we saw with his "STAR WARS" prequels, seems more swept up in seeing things whizz past our head and upping the ante in terms of what digital projection and technology can do versus telling a story about heroes overcoming odds and adversity. It gets close but not enough where the movie can't get past its 'Save it for a rainy day or rental'-quality. Good cast just not a strong enough story/portrayal. A shame really but there is always the Laurence Fishburne movie floating around somewhere.