The Red Baron (2010)

hyped garbage

As Good As It Gets

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This movie turns Manfred von Richtofen into an Abercrombie & Fitch model, prancing around in expensive scarves and dashing hats, batting his feminine eyes and pouting boyishly. The love story is straight out of a soap opera -- she emerging from his combat tent, disheveled, as he climbs into the cockpit, perfectly coiffed for battle.The CGI combat scenes are enjoyable to some extent for a WWI aviation enthusiast like myself, but at the end of the day they are not in the same league whatsoever with the 1930 movie Hell's Angels, so you must concede that in 80-odd years we have only gone backwards in that department.Most disappointing about this film are the gross liberties taken with history. While a bit of fudging is to be expected, this movie simply pays no heed to actual events, reshaping every persona and story to suit its inane melodramatic sensibilities. The irony is that the real history is far more interesting and captivating than what the B-team screenwriters have come up with here. Some day they will make a better movie out of the raw historical facts being cast aside here, and I hope I live to see it.

I gave this film nine out of ten stars for two reasons.,,The first was that when Verner Voss dies there was no mention at all of the tremendous odds he faced the day he died. Anyone interested should google "The Death of Verner Voss Video" and see the recreation of it.The second was it's very liberal creativity with historical events. There is, for example, no evidence that Richtofen had any contact with Roy Brown, the man who eventually shot down Richtofen, prior to their meeting the day Richtofen died.That said, this film is extraordinary in several ways which make the two items above forgivable. The depiction of those flying men as gentlemen trying to be honourable in a time of war, their happy-go-lucky attitude regarding their deadly profession and the relationships they had make for an enjoyable ride.The areal combat sequences are, simply put, the best I have ever seen in a film depicting World War 1 and certainly rank in the top five of those I all I have seen.Cudos to the actors who brought their characters to life for us. They could not have done better.I am only sorry I did not see it on the big screen...

There's nothing really great about this movie but then there is nothing really bad about this movie either.It's a good rainy Saturday afternoon story to get involved with and be entertained. I do not feel the writers and director were in a quest for historical accuracy. Nor were they looking to create a big box office hit.The acting is just okay, costumes are nice, dialog forgettable, and love interest kept tamed because the story is about how Baron got his Red! So if you want an easy entertaining flick with some rather impressive WWI biplane dogfighting (best part of movie)- this is a good choice.

great movie,some people have complained that certain things are inaccurate in this movie,well 90 percent of movies based on actual facts have inaccuracies,its just a fact of the movie industry, some times directors have to add a story or two to a movie to spice it up a little,i truly enjoyed the movie and have watched it a few more times since,its a little bit like fly boys so if you liked that you will like this one,as a WW2 historian i have conditioned myself not to be picky about a uniform or a certain type of airplane when i watch a movie about the time period and since I've been doing that i enjoy my movies a lot more, i know this is WW1 but same scenario, with all this said watch this movie, if your not trying to emulate a movie critic you'll have a good time,the airplane scenes are awesome and the storyline is great too.