March 17, 2012

The Aviator (2004)

The Aviator tells the story of Howard Hughes who was a film maker that had ambitions of flying. However the film covers his attempts to take on Juan Trippe of Pan Am Airlines and also the senate. It gentley drops in the fact he suffered from OCD. The story does take an awful long time to find its feet. I thought that some of the colours that were used were very beautiful and the film moved along at a decent pace but it was possibly a good half hour before it started to pick up.

As the lead actor, Leonardo Di Caprio gives a relativley good performance. I wasnt so keen on him at the very beginning but once the OCD started to take effect I found him to be more interesting. Cate Blanchet is absolutley fantastic as Katherine Hepburn. I thought that her performance was simply superb and it didnt feel like she was acting but just giving a normal performance. It's easy to see why she was given an oscar for this performance. I also thought Alan Aida was very good as Owen Brewster. He was easily in Trippe's pocket and was at his best in the senate hearings. I loved Aida's face when you could see it was getting away from him and Di Caprio's character was getting the upper hand. John C Reiley's performance was nice and showed what a good actor he is and how good he could be if he stopped appearing in stupid films with Will Ferrel.

The Aviator is a good film but its not as good as it should have been. I didnt know much about Howard Hughes and whilst I was given a good biography lesson but that was about as much as I took from the film. The performances were all very good and its half a good film and the second half was a brilliant film.

No comments: