Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast
Leonardo Dicaprio: Howard Hughes
Cate Blanchett: Katharine Hepburn
Kate Beckinsale: Ava Gardner
John C. Reilly: Noah Deitrich
Alec Baldwin: Juan Trippe
Alan Alda: Senator Ralph Owen Brewster
Ian Holm: Professor Fitz
Summary:
The life of Howard Hughes was wrought with trials and tribulations. He worked hard to gain tons of money at a young age, commandeered the helm of many an aircraft while pioneering the concept of comercial airlines, transcontinental flight, wild and radical plane designs that made all other bystanders scratch their heads in wonderment, and a fortune that he spent wildly on crazy schemes. He also had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), which is a great substitute for a movie character to have if they aren’t into drugs.
This marks the setting for a long journey that taxes the viewers’ patience, with lots of Hughes flying planes and refusing to go with the majority of peoples’ suggestions for the Greater Good of his own well-being.
Review:
I actually didn’t really want to see this movie. I just did because I felt like watching a movie today, and I’m always willing to check something out even if I don’t think I’d like it, because sometimes I’m really pleasantly surprised.
The Aviator takes the life of a man who managed to have lived a life that sounds extraordinary, and transform it into nothing short of a perilous disaster, which like a devestating plane crash set amongst a gruesome scene, you want nothing to do with it and wish it was over so you can stop thinking about it.
Lately, I’ve been unimpressed with Scorsese’s work, much like I’d say 85% of the rest of the world population. If it wasn’t for Daniel Day-Lewis culling out one of the greatest performances in at least a decade, Gangs of New York would hardly had been worth the watch. If there’s one thing that both these movies have going for them, it’s a great production design.
First off, if I was Marty, I’d have completely abolished the absolutely retarded dancing singers that are zoomed in on some of the most idiotic performers onstage that I’ve ever seen on celluloid. They may only last a few seconds each, but these few seconds are very precious, especially when you’re dealing with a runtime of no less than 150+ minutes.
The actual flying the plane parts were pretty neat looking, but sadly I don’t feel too engrossed with any of it. It just looks like a pilot on a greenscreen with wide pullbacks and tracking shots that are obviously impossible, and because of the impossibility of making a shot that goes straight through a plane flying in mid-air, you’re thrown out of any concept of realism, and are just stuck thinking thoughts like “hey, woah, look at that neat trick. How quaint.” The worst part of Scorsese’s clever antics of in-flight cinematography is how quickly you’re thrown out of the realism of the moment. Any real drama of the scene is lost in the director’s technological gadgetry. Easthetically pleasing perhaps, but that’s it. Not personally involving for the spectators.
DiCaprio was visually unconvincing as an aging Howard over a span of more than twenty years, which is not his fault but the makeup department’s. What’s important for Leo is to try to stay focused on the performance. I was not that impressed. He might have some of the mannerisms of Mr. Hughes, but he’s just Leo DiCaprio onscreen to me. Oh, and Gwen Stefani is nearly a complete mute and is in it for about 3 minutes. I have no idea why they even make mention of her having any relevence to the movie’s outcome. Cate Blanchett was the real winner of the bunch, playing Katharine Hepburn just the way I see her in the movies; loud, obnoxious, overbearing, butch, ugly, fake and grating on the ears. I hated her, so obviously she played Katy Hepburn real well!
Alan Alda makes a rare appearance onscreen as Senator Brewster, consorting with The Enemy, aka Juan Trippe played by Alec Baldwin, the head of Pan-Am airlines. I’d say the two of them are OK, but they don’t have much to say or do, so who gives a fuck anyways, eh?
Kate Beckinsale is beautiful. She even looks better than the real Ava Gardner, but if she wasn’t in the movie at all, nothing would have changed the outcome of the movie.
Jude Law makes his 8th appearance in a movie this year as Errol Flynn for a fleeting moment. So do many other actors stick their heads in for a moment or two and then disappear just as quickly as they appear, adding more worthless fluff to an overblown production.
Of course, the longer we progress through this long and laborious journey, the more we discover the seriousness of Hughes’ OCD, and how it takes over his every sense of being. When things are at their worst, so is Hughes’ OCD at its’ strongest. He washes his hands, needs things to be in good order… well, all the classic symptoms of OCD but has been done better in a handful of other movies. This is one of the two main antagonists for our protagonist, and sadly it would have made MORE sense just to make him use drugs so that we didn’t get so many unfunny moments that are supposed to also be mixed in with sadness for his plight. It also makes it very fitting to end the movie on the note that it did, saying “things are never going to be ‘normal’ for this guy, let’s all feel pity as the credits roll.” My pity was having sat through this.
By the time the last hour of the movie was winding (not down, just winding), I was starting to get my own case of OCD, mumbling incoherently to myself: “God damnit, just end, FUCK. End. SHIT! God damnit, just end already, FUCK! Shit! End, damnit, SHIT, end. FUCK,” etc…
This is yet another movie this MONTH (also out this month: Beyond the Sea, Hotel Rwanda, Finding Neverland, as well as numerous other character-driven dramas and true stories over the last few months) that has the Oscar contention pleadings of a near washed-up and forgotten director of these last few years making another Epic tale based on the life of someone who actually existed, all for the benefit of an audience that has to sit through uninspiring everything until finally the end comes and one has to wonder how something like this ever got made. What’s worse is that the Academy is probably going to eat it up like biscuits on hot gravy. The Aviator would seem to have a shitload of cool things to bring to the screen based on the happenings of Howard Hughes’ life, but even the ‘cool’ stuff turns into dramatic vapidity by some pure stroke of wild anti-genius as each scene ambles forward.
If you’d like to be bored to death, or just want to see how a movie should NOT be made, but will get lots of attention because of the names behind the making of a movie, then I highly recommend The Aviator!
Grade: D-
Reviewed: 12/29/04