Flyboys (2006)

Forget the airbrushed special effects and sanitized bluescreen computer graphics of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Enjoy the down-and-dirty, seat-of-the-pants, sweat-of-the-brow, eat-lead-you-damn-Kraut! aerial dogfights in Flyboys, based on the story of the Lafayette Escadrille -- U.S. pilots who volunteered to serve as an air wing in France before America entered World War I. As the Fox-TV-loving detractors of France conveniently forget, America had no fighter pilots or air force, so we sent men to train and fly with the French. Flyboys shows the guff and bluster it took to train our boys up to fly like men who commanded the clouds -- when planes were still little better than biplanes -- and we couldn't have done it without the French. Don't see this movie for a complex love-story subplot as in Pearl Harbor or even historical accuracy as in Master and Commander. Watch Flyboys for its big, gritty, in-your-face, shooting-gallery action. It puts you right in the cockpit with the pilot as a German's twin guns walk perforating rivers of lead across his wing or fuselage, percussive impacts shearing off bits of shrapnel at best and threatening imminent explosive death at worst. Uncle Sam's boys (James Franco and company) fly up a storm but my favorite is their wily squadron leader, played by none other than your favorite Frenchman and mine, Jean Reno. 4 stars.