Worse Than I Expected

I was also disapponited with the movie.

I could not believe that when the pilots landed in 'no mans land' that it looked like it was peacetime - surely it would have been a landscape that was destroyed by shelling and barded wire?

I thought it was hilarious when the nurse apologised to Fiennes for taking so long to cross the lines to visit the grave site.....

I guess with Til Schwiger the company needed a name that had appeared in movies before (even if this includes Driven). I agree that he should have played another role - but then he may not have had as much screen time.

Fair point about Schweiger's age. It's so easy for modern audiences to forget just how young most of the real pilots actually were. Nonetheless, I thought the casting for the most part was quite good. Aside from being a bit tall, I can't imagine there are too many actors out there who look more like the real Richthofen that Schweighofer.

I thought it was decent, not great. I'd have to say that well over 95 percent of all movies based on historical events often have very little accuracy; I tell myself that ahead of time so as to avoid disappointment. I do appreciate some historical accuracy though and thought the subplots and twists about MVR shooting Brown down and them meeting each other in no man's land, etc., was ridiculous and going too far into the realm of fiction. I understand writers' and directors' needs to use elements of storytelling, but I thought that was kind of absurd.

I guess what amazes me is I think MVR's story is an absolutely astounding one - a story that doesn't need to be exaggerated to make it interesting. The more you stray into fiction, the less exciting you make it. Hopefully someday someone will make a solid, worthy portrayal.

I knew it was gonna be crap during the first scene...when the pilot hits the grave with a wreath....that was a big eye-roller

Yes, I thought this a very enjoyable dvd and well worth watching. No need to be sorry twatams!

It's not a crime to like this film, but may I ask what is there to like? It's the same old collection of cliches. Yes, it's fictionalized (there's no such thing as a "true story" being that a story is a packaged view of messy reality), but how I would have fictionalized it would have been to emphasize the story of the planes. That's what drew me, and many people, to this film in the first place - but they turned these incredible machines into some kind of WWII prop-cum-jet flying machines that never existed. I don't understand why the engines worked so slowly, yet these planes were diving and rolling as if Chuck Yeager was going Mach 2 in them! The CGI was actually good - if only this film had, being a WWI film, recreated World War I!

Just because something is fiction does not mean that it's okay to be paint-by-the-numbers unoriginal or downright unrealistic, and this film was both! I would forgive human interest inaccuracies if the writer and director had chosen to more accurately tell the story of these planes, how they flew, what combat in them was like, how flipping dangerous they were, etc. Now, there is where you find your plot and your interest (and your character development). Instead, what we got was hilariously tongue-twisting, purple prose dialog, a plodding pace, and "action" sequences that abruptly terminated. I did not care about the characters at all. I was bored. The only thing I liked was the shots of the planes (when they weren't flying like Bell X-1s).

"Hell's Angels" was also fiction, but that film, focusing on the real details of WWI pilots' lives, is a taut, unnerving, and fascinating classic, and the primitive planes and airships made it all the more harrowing.

The Red Baron was a horrible flick with many dramatizations and inaccuracies to be excused. Then the battle scenes were so confusing.

I stopped watching this wreck about 45 minutes in.