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Information
- Year
- 2012
- Runtime
- 125 min.
- Director
- Anthony Hemingway
- Genres
- Action, Drama, Adventure
- Rating *
- 5.9
- Votes *
- 25,002
- Checks
- 937
- Favs
- 21
- Dislikes
- 53
- Favs/checks
- 2.2% (1:45)
- Favs/dislikes
- 1:3
Top comments
-
Earring72
Dissapointing WWII movie. Based on true events.....but plays out like a tvmovie soap. Some good effects but storywise very weak and also weak acting. The true story deserves a better movie!!! 11 years 3 months ago -
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KuroSawWhat
"Competent" and "derivative" are the best words to describe Red Tails. It feels like a 40s war picture and follows that formula to a T, in much the same way that Star Wars and Indiana Jones were George Lucas' tributes to 40s serial adventures. There is much more on-the-ground human drama than air action, and what action it does have is rather sedate. That's not to say that the film is not enjoyable, but is in fact very well constructed.
The air action pan, zoom and cuts are methodical and, frankly, feel quite a lot like Star Wars (1977), with lots of squadron chatter and nice shot composition. The action is very similar to older movies, obviously by design, and you'll either love that or not. ILM works their usual magic with the visuals, and on the ground it seems as though they might actually have done some on-location shooting (or the CGI is just really good). Perhaps George and LucasFilm have learned that computers are not the be-all and end-all of film making, giving me hope for Indiana Jones 5. The balance between CGI fakery and traditional set filming seems just about right.
The on-ground story is nothing out of the ordinary. The race issue of the Tuskegee Airmen is dealt with as you'd expect, and standard war drama stories play out. The script manages to carry at least four or five different subplots to completion in good fashion, and all the actors are sufficiently engaging.
Red Tails is a lot of war movie nostalgia, wrapped in a beautiful LucasFilm production. It could have been much better, and I'm sure many will despise the laid-back pacing, but I'd rather watch this ten times over than the other Hollywood bloatbusters like J.J. Star Trek, Dark Knight Rises or Man of Steel. Red Tails manages to retain a lot of the heart that made those old war movies so endearing. It's not about the frenetic action, or a grim and dreary worldview; it's about the people, caught up in the times. I liked it. 10 years 6 months ago