Monday, June 6, 2016

Movie Reviews #56 - The Aviator (2004)

Plot: The life story of aviation innovator and filmmaker Howard Hughes.

Review: Leonardo DiCaprio is an actor for whom I’ve had 2 differing opinions of. When Titanic came out I though he was just a pretty boy. But as the years went by he’s proven himself more and more to be an excellent actor. His collaboration with Martin Scorsese have been for the most part excellent.

            Howard Hughes is a personality that I only knew as a weirdo who isolated themselves. I basically learned all my knowledge of him from The Simpsons and the James Bond movie Diamonds are Forever who each had parodies of him. In this movie we get a better understanding of who he was. Of course, this is a movie so I never assume everything I see is pure biographical, I understand there are embellishments, omissions and downright made up stuff. Despite this, seeing a glimpse of how old, old Hollywood was is compelling. His relationship with female celebrities of the time was reminiscent of how things are today.

            Cate Blanchett’s interpretation of Katherine Hepburn is infuriating. No one actually talks like that all the time. It gets really on your nerves after a while. The other portion of the movie, about Hughes aviation developments, is a different tone but the character stays the same. His deteriorating mental health becomes a focus near the end and DiCaprio does a great job on this.

            The Aviator is a good movie but it is not great. The characters are interesting and the acting is excellent. It’s just missing a little something to be put in the same category as other classic biopics.


Score: 7.5/10

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