Another attempt by cinematographers to tell the story of the Manfred von Richthofen. In reality the story is a modern attempt at revisionism. The real stars of this film are the aircraft. As to the review. . .Who would have thought that a Movie review could be done best by a fellow WWI aviation fanatic, who''s life work has been at a newspaper? Our own Burl Burlingame has put in his 2 cents (Pfennings) and its spot on IMHO. . .


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from Director Nikolai Müllerschön:




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Since my callsign here is JackFlash, please allow my comments.

We know JACK about what we like. War movies make good movie subjects. Antiwar movies don't do JACK and maybe tthats why this movie did so poorly at the Box office. I guess for you modern cinematographers the reality of war isn't artistic enough and you feel it important to add humanistic revisionism to the life exploits of one that many aready respect or find some credence to. Today you find the term "Red Baron" on everything. You want to sell something just add "Red Baron" to it. What I personally don't get is why people that have no clue about real subjects get to make movies about them. But after all it just entertainment.

At least DC comics created a successful and whole new personality and name for its WWI German pilot hero without having to borrow anything from the legend of the Red Baron.

As to it being the greatest WWI aviation film todate, not hardly. The greatest movie todate on MvR? You have got to be smoking something illegal and hallucinogenic.

Just watched this move this evening and I think maybe the best WWI aviation movie to date(oops forgot Dawn Patrol, my favorite). I must say, Im really keen on what the director had to say above. i dont know jack about making movies. But everytime these things come up directors consistently fail to explain to us of the unwashed masses why some seeming small, easy to get right details, must go out the window. If the A/C are CGI why not show the early dogfights with Hawker in pusher planes instead of SE5s. I dont know if Hawker used such an emblem, but it looks to me more like someone wanted Nungessers plane in the story, but it didnt belong. The german planes looked really good (a few ficticious schemes, some based on reality), a far cry from ten thousand red triplanes of flyboys, so they had the attention to detail to make a decent overall film. Roy browns first appearance in a camel looked good, but later was a preposterous mix of markings from several planes. The biggest cop out was not even attempting MvRs last flight. I was exited, the details were coming together, even Wolfram was going to be in the air... and then its over... lame. Note I dont bother with the love story and Richtofen/Brown scenes. The love story was at least rooted in rumor and the Richtofen/Brown scenes are part of the antiwar narrative (as far as Ive seen all war movies are anti war, as it should be) and help tell a story, so no matter how weird and counter factual they are. It could have been better without them, but the director had a mission in mind. The movie also seemed to trivialize the "blue max" (all the sudden everyone had one) and Hawker was snuffed out as if he was a helpless child in the cockpit(shouting like a barbarian too). This just skims the surface there is tons to complain about, but i think a few details could have really changed this for the better. Was still enjoyable though.

Well i manage to watch both the RED BARON and FLYBOYS over the weekend and i thought Flyboys was a better film, i tried to forget about the hords of triplanes and watch it for what it was, infact it made me think more of the American flyers who also fought before the U.S came in to the war.
As for the Red Baron film i fast forwarded the love story and just watched the dog-fights. As for the ending when MvR took his last flight, to me it looked like the film company had run out of money and couldn't afford to film it. making the whole film pointless. Now if Peter Jackson did a film about the first world war, i am sure it would be a knock out.

Can you tell us more about this? I'm not a comics reader, but if it is well done, and reasonably realistic, I would be interested in reading it.

Thanks!

Karl

Fortunately what both this new flick and "flyboys" demonstrates is that if someone decides to do a reasonable historically accurate film or a less generic historical fictional tale, the technology is there now to really blow the audience away. With the massive amount of CGI in the Lord of the Ring movies, Jackson sure has the credentials. This Movie reminded me alot of "Dark Blue world" which was another european (czech I think) made aviation movie set in WWII about czech pilots in the RAF. Fantastic CGI dogfights, though brief and over ruled by a love story.

I just got this from Netflix and watched it. What a stinker it was! I didn't dwell on historical accuracies/inaccuracies, but just watched it as a WWI aviation film I wanted to entertain me. It failed miserably. While I did like the flight scenes and the dog fighting, the close ups of the aircraft, and while it did have a few good moments this was all too much crapola! The philosophical chat between Brown and the RB as they strolled happily along together while making their way back to their lines was too much when I saw it even though I knew it was coming. I don't claim to be an expert on Brown, but things I have read about him hardly portrayed him as an almost aristocratic deep thinker. The RB- well that's the trouble with legends, they have a life of their own. The oddest thing was the ending. If you aren't aware of the historical information surrounding the RB's last combat actions the dialog where the new pilot is told to hang back and not enter the fray is just that- meaningless dialog. The next thing you know the RB is dead and the film ends. You don't see anything! You certainly don't get the gravity and irony of those instructions. So, on one hand it's best to know little about history to be able to watch this film but at the end if you don't know history you don't get what happened. The tactical mistakes the real RB made in failing to heed his own advice about combat conduct are telling to some degree if the director and writers wanted to take literary license. Maybe he had had enough, maybe he had lost his edge, maybe he no longer cared. The debate whether the Australian machine gunner on the ground got him (my belief is with him) or if Roy Brown actually got him could have added a final note but wasn't included. I guess the best way I can sum, it up is saying I wouldn't bother watching it again. I'm glad I saw it through Netflix rather than bought it retail.

Maybe somebody someday will make a movie about WWI aviation with the Red Baron that will do justice to the subject. For that, someone needs to portray history, not reinvent it.

The only other film I felt as badly let down by was the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Nobody seems to be able to get that one right either or make it as good as it could be.

Sadly, the WB did not thought that Mexico could to be a good market for this aviation movie, so... we never saw the film in cinema halls

Cheers.

Al

It never hit the movie theaters on this side of the globe . Was only in Europe and came out 2 years later on DVD .

I won't waste my time with seeing this film. With the attitude of the writers and directors, they need a history lesson or two .

Terri, I thought that the movie were in USA and Canada, I saw in Internet the premieres and now I know it was in Europe.

About the history...mhhh... you are right, the story is some wrong, as a friend says, if the airplane movies only present the real history, the halls where empty.