The Aviator

THE AVIATOR (2004) - Feb. 8, 2005
Well, that was a bit of a disappointment. It certainly wasn't bad -- it was really well made, and well acted. It was a good movie. But it wasn't great. I never really connected with it like I did with Gangs of New York, or Casino, or Goodfellas, or Raging Bull. It was almost always interesting on a visual level; I particularly liked the sort of technicolor look of the early part of the film. The story, on the other hand... The beginning part, with Hughes struggling to get Hell's Angels made, was probably the most interesting. But then the rest of the film deals with Hughes' various aeronautical endevours, which got a bit old after a while. The movie was almost three hours long, and while it was never boring, it probably would have benefited from a bit of trimming. Another problem is, though it seems like Howard Hughes should be a fascinating subject for a movie, what with all his eccentricities and such, this just doesn't seem to be the case. I blame John Logan. Though he wrote the excellent Gladiator, and the very good The Last Samurai, pretty much everything else he's done has been a big dud (with the worst offender being Bats -- one of the most terrible movies I've ever seen). Though with Gladiator and Samurai, he was credited with two other writers, but with The Aviator and Bats, he has sole credit. I have to wonder how much of the former two films he actually wrote... ***