Flyboys
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) | Release Date: September 22, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
47
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 22 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
13
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
70
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
A highly enjoyable programmer about those brave young men and their rickety flying machines. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
As imaginatively as some of them are staged, the action scenes are never authentically gripping. This seems to be the hidden handicap of our new digital filmmaking era in which all big action sequences are generated in the computer and look vaguely like cartoons. Read full review
63
PremiereGlenn Kenny
Part of what makes these kind of war movies such cinematic comfort food (aside from the moral certainty they strive to convey) is their familiarity. But I wonder if said familiarity is what compels contemporary filmmakers to overstuff the material -- Flyboys is a good two hours and 20 minutes. Read full review
63
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
While the aerial dogfights are handsome and apparently historically accurate, right down to the tracer bullets that leave graceful, crisscrossing trails in the clouds, they have a video-game feel. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
The movie's straightforward and ingratiating, and as pretty-boy history lessons go, it's a lot less obnoxious than "Pearl Harbor." Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterSheri Linden
A decidedly old-fashioned war film that reaches for epic sweep but is often bogged down in cliched drama and two-dimensional characters. Read full review
60
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Lovingly and knowledgeably made by director Tony Bill, who got his pilot's license as a teenager, pic nonetheless has a lightweight, airbrushed feel; despite the brutal dogfights and inevitable deaths, there's little gravity or resonance. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
There's something almost perversely old-fashioned about Flyboys. Read full review
50
Village VoiceBill Gallo
Here is the War to End All Wars seen from on high--as it was way back when, in "Wings" or the Howard Hughes "Hell's Angels"--a world apart from the grim, futile slaughterhouses of Verdun and the Marne. Among these combatants, you won't find much "All Quiet on the Western Front"–style despair, and the paths of glory are unsullied by doubt or disillusionment. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Just about everything in the video-gamey World War I picture Flyboys rings false, although the planes certainly are terrific. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephen Hunter
While the music slops and churns and the ground-level bathos rises, the aerial stuff is occasionally stirring. Read full review
50
The New York TimesNathan Lee
Despite its empty head and arduous length, Flyboys is ever so nice, in the manner of a Norman Rockwell illustration. The director, Tony Bill, may not be a philosopher but he is a gentleman, moving things along with a tidy, well-mannered hand. In another context, such politesse might feel tonic. Given the state of things, it’s nearly toxic. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
The aerial dogfights are thrilling, but the script seems to have been written by Snoopy. Read full review
50
San Francisco ExaminerWalter Addiego
Besides some fine dogfight sequences, it often feels threadbare, just an exercise in recycling. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Flyboys is so schematic and contrived, you can anticipate exactly what scene is going to come next, and who will be the next to die in combat, once you latch onto the structure of the script, which has all the inventiveness and ingenuity of a flow chart. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Shot like a Disney period piece (prettily, with spiffy props, shiny vintage vehicles, and costumes just back from the cleaners), Flyboys introduces its squadron the old-fashioned way: with character-establishing setups. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyGregory Kirshling
This is a lost opportunity on an epic scale. The actors are so styled and the dogfights so drippy with CG that, as a period piece, the movie almost looks like it's set in the future. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
While director Bill nails the sheer spectacle of squads of SPADs dovetailing in flames into the wide blue yonder, the earthbound action (much as it was in another sputtering epic, Michael Bay's "Pearl Harbor") is strictly laissez faire. Read full review
38
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Flyboys doesn't succeed as a wartime adventure story or as a period romance. Even the special effects, set in a historical context, are too ho-hum to save this over-long and tedious film. Read full review
38
New York PostKyle Smith
The computer-generated flying effects are the only reason to see the movie, but at some point somebody left the computer on too long, so it went ahead and spat out the script. Read full review
33
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Forget any hope of raffish adventure if you think of seeing Flyboys. Read full review
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate Taylor
The creators of Flyboys know no image too clichéd, no narrative convention too exhausted and no psychological motivation too pat that it can't do service. Read full review
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