Product Description
With her lanky Middle-America looks and her toothy grin, Hilary Swank is a natural fit for the adventurous figure of Amelia Earhart, the world's most famous aviatrix. Amelia ticks through the major achievements of Earhart's career: her 1928 flight across the Atlantic (as a passenger, not a pilot), which made her the first airborne woman to make the trip; more triumphantly, her 1932 solo transatlantic journey; her marriage to publisher George Putnam; and of course the mysterious 1937 around-the-world flight that ended in her vanishing, with engineer Fred Noonan, somewhere near Howland Island in the mid Pacific. With Swank in her pilot togs and director Mira Nair at the helm, the project would seem to have the ingredients for success, but the resulting film is a truly dull, almost featureless affair. The big flights themselves have innate appeal, but otherwise the emphasis is on Amelia's love life, shared between Putnam (Richard Gere) and the dashing Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor)--who, the film clumsily keeps reminding us, is the father of Gore Vidal, seen here as a precocious tyke. A smidgen of Amelia's proto-feminist attitude is included, including her intriguing take on her marriage agreement, but nothing actually cuts deep or generates interest. After a while Amelia becomes a series of events, told with less excitement than the average documentary on the same subject, albeit with prettier photography. --Robert Horton
Disapporintment
I was looking forward to a magnificent epic but came away with the following:
Negatives:
Acting was forced, broken into short artificial segments and stiff. Dialogue was simplistic and seemed contrived. Story seemed incomplete, full of holes and failed to convince me of any in-depth understanding of Amelia.
Positives:
Nice touristy scenic aerial photography. Old film clips were the highlight of the movie.
Negatives:
Acting was forced, broken into short artificial segments and stiff. Dialogue was simplistic and seemed contrived. Story seemed incomplete, full of holes and failed to convince me of any in-depth understanding of Amelia.
Positives:
Nice touristy scenic aerial photography. Old film clips were the highlight of the movie.
Leaden Direction and a Flat Script and Weigh Down a Biopic That Refuses to Take Flight
On the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this 2009 biopic of legendary aviatrix Amelia Earhart. Stephanie Carroll's production design, Stuart Dryburgh's cinematography and Gabriel Yared's (The Lives of Others) musical score are all appropriately evocative in recreating the vintage feeling of pioneering hope that Earhart represented during the Great Depression. However, there is a serious problem with the execution of this movie because dramatically, it feels strangely inert and worse, rather inconsequential. Part of the problem is our familiarity with Earhart's own rule-breaking story and her mysterious death over the Pacific. The challenge of making something fresh and inventive out of her mythic life proves too much for director Mira Nair (The Namesake) and screenwriters Ron Bass (Rain Man) and Anna Hamilton Phelan (Girl, Interrupted), who base their script on separate biographies by Susan Butler and Mary S. Lovell. In combination, they respond with a predictable pile of clichés about heroism, infidelity, proto-feminism, and the mantra of daring to dream.
With Earhart's doomed last flight in 1937 providing the narrative frame, the story skims the basic facts of her life with the main emphasis placed on her last decade beginning with her first transatlantic flight in 1928. This flashback technique necessitates the constant superimposition of titles detailing locales and years since there is little else that would give us a clue where we are in the tired soap opera being told. In episodic form, Earhart's ambition is shown with little personal drive onscreen, and her allegedly adulterous affair with Gene Vidal, an aeronautics engineer for the FDR administration, comes across more clinical than passionate. Also given short shrift is her complicated marriage to publishing tycoon George Putnam, whose previous success in chronicling Charles Lindbergh's life story drove him to make Earhart a merchandising bonanza. Beyond that, we simply see Earhart breaking all distance records for flying, and the story eventually catches up with her final flight.
Even this climactic episode, played out in so many previous incarnations, lacks the propulsive conviction to save the movie from itself. See Yves Simoneau's 1994 Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight (with Diane Keaton as Earhart) for a much more affecting recreation. Looking and even sounding a bit like a toothsome, mid-1930's reincarnation of Katharine Hepburn, Hilary Swank would seem to be the ideal embodiment of Earhart given her androgynous look and determined personality. However, she is left stranded by a script that gives her little to work with beyond providing a glib, glossy sheen to an oversimplified characterization. It's a shame given the actress's innate talent for bringing heart to misunderstood characters, but neither she nor Nair can come close to revealing Earhart's soul. As Vidal, Ewan McGregor makes little impression with his opaque character overshadowed by his precocious son who would grow up to become author Gore Vidal.
Richard Gere fares little better as Putnam as he reverts back to the pained husband he played in Adrian Lyne's Unfaithful when the affair is exposed. Unfortunately, the love story between Putnam and Earhart never takes hold over the story being told. Of the supporting cast, only Christopher Eccleston makes an impression as navigator Fred Noonan, who is constantly battling his alcoholism on that fateful flight. Cherry Jones has a rather incongruous cameo as a dotty Eleanor Roosevelt to whom Earhart allows to take the controls of a nocturnal flight over Washington D.C. There is no commentary track accompanying the 2010 DVD, but there is, of course, the standard making-of feature, which runs 23 minutes. In addition, there are ten deleted scenes, none of which would have provided much value to the final product despite the intriguing casting of Virginia Madsen as Putnam's first wife. There are other shorter featurettes focused on Earhart herself, her plane, and the meticulous recreation of the period aircraft, plus seven vintage newsreels.
With Earhart's doomed last flight in 1937 providing the narrative frame, the story skims the basic facts of her life with the main emphasis placed on her last decade beginning with her first transatlantic flight in 1928. This flashback technique necessitates the constant superimposition of titles detailing locales and years since there is little else that would give us a clue where we are in the tired soap opera being told. In episodic form, Earhart's ambition is shown with little personal drive onscreen, and her allegedly adulterous affair with Gene Vidal, an aeronautics engineer for the FDR administration, comes across more clinical than passionate. Also given short shrift is her complicated marriage to publishing tycoon George Putnam, whose previous success in chronicling Charles Lindbergh's life story drove him to make Earhart a merchandising bonanza. Beyond that, we simply see Earhart breaking all distance records for flying, and the story eventually catches up with her final flight.
Even this climactic episode, played out in so many previous incarnations, lacks the propulsive conviction to save the movie from itself. See Yves Simoneau's 1994 Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight (with Diane Keaton as Earhart) for a much more affecting recreation. Looking and even sounding a bit like a toothsome, mid-1930's reincarnation of Katharine Hepburn, Hilary Swank would seem to be the ideal embodiment of Earhart given her androgynous look and determined personality. However, she is left stranded by a script that gives her little to work with beyond providing a glib, glossy sheen to an oversimplified characterization. It's a shame given the actress's innate talent for bringing heart to misunderstood characters, but neither she nor Nair can come close to revealing Earhart's soul. As Vidal, Ewan McGregor makes little impression with his opaque character overshadowed by his precocious son who would grow up to become author Gore Vidal.
Richard Gere fares little better as Putnam as he reverts back to the pained husband he played in Adrian Lyne's Unfaithful when the affair is exposed. Unfortunately, the love story between Putnam and Earhart never takes hold over the story being told. Of the supporting cast, only Christopher Eccleston makes an impression as navigator Fred Noonan, who is constantly battling his alcoholism on that fateful flight. Cherry Jones has a rather incongruous cameo as a dotty Eleanor Roosevelt to whom Earhart allows to take the controls of a nocturnal flight over Washington D.C. There is no commentary track accompanying the 2010 DVD, but there is, of course, the standard making-of feature, which runs 23 minutes. In addition, there are ten deleted scenes, none of which would have provided much value to the final product despite the intriguing casting of Virginia Madsen as Putnam's first wife. There are other shorter featurettes focused on Earhart herself, her plane, and the meticulous recreation of the period aircraft, plus seven vintage newsreels.
UNfasten your seatbelts...and JUMP!
Director Mira Nair's rare miss.
Amelia ends up being nothing more than a stack of pretty postcards of private air travel in the 30's with a tomboy pilot with a toothy grin and some dull musings about the vastness of the sky, the vastness of the ocean and the freedom one feels in flight,yawn city(population two!).
Pretty-boy Richard Gere adds no weight whatsoever to his role as Amelia's husband/manager and the cliche soundtrack sounds like the muzak version of the "Out of Africa" track.
Considering the real life adventure, risk, drama and danger of this remarkably strong headed woman with an iron will, none of it was captured on film.
The ridiculously mannered Hillary Swank gives it her all (once again in cast as a boyish lass) but doesn't succeed in making this story soar.
When one of the most memorable lines in the film is of journalists remarking on how much prettier she is in real life than in her press pics...you know it's a stinker.
There's a reason why this film disappeared from the theaters after one single showing.
Amelia ends up being nothing more than a stack of pretty postcards of private air travel in the 30's with a tomboy pilot with a toothy grin and some dull musings about the vastness of the sky, the vastness of the ocean and the freedom one feels in flight,yawn city(population two!).
Pretty-boy Richard Gere adds no weight whatsoever to his role as Amelia's husband/manager and the cliche soundtrack sounds like the muzak version of the "Out of Africa" track.
Considering the real life adventure, risk, drama and danger of this remarkably strong headed woman with an iron will, none of it was captured on film.
The ridiculously mannered Hillary Swank gives it her all (once again in cast as a boyish lass) but doesn't succeed in making this story soar.
When one of the most memorable lines in the film is of journalists remarking on how much prettier she is in real life than in her press pics...you know it's a stinker.
There's a reason why this film disappeared from the theaters after one single showing.
Amelia - a review by Pandora
Hi, all you movie lovers out there!
I saw this great movie at New York City's Kipsa Bay Theatre and was enchanted by it! The movie was real, captured the look and feel of the 30's, and had plenty of romance and excitement in early flying to keep you interested and glued to the big screen. Hillary Swank's acting was fine and authentic as Amelia Earhardt and Richard Gere portrayed Amelia's supportive husband wonderfully. The photography and colors of the movie were terrific! The ending was very moving as Amelia realizes she will not survive her last flight as her plane, hopelessly lost, drifts over the great ocean, yet she struggles to stay brave and strong despite her emotions. What more would you want? This movie is a good flick and a must see!
I saw this great movie at New York City's Kipsa Bay Theatre and was enchanted by it! The movie was real, captured the look and feel of the 30's, and had plenty of romance and excitement in early flying to keep you interested and glued to the big screen. Hillary Swank's acting was fine and authentic as Amelia Earhardt and Richard Gere portrayed Amelia's supportive husband wonderfully. The photography and colors of the movie were terrific! The ending was very moving as Amelia realizes she will not survive her last flight as her plane, hopelessly lost, drifts over the great ocean, yet she struggles to stay brave and strong despite her emotions. What more would you want? This movie is a good flick and a must see!
Splice Back in the Cut Scenes
My wife and I generally like historical movies. When we saw the trailer at our local theater, we were determined see the picture when it came. It never came! Option two was, order the DVD. That was a fortunate move because the DVD included deleted scenes in "Extras" menu. Now deleted scenes seldom Have any significant impact on a story line, but in this case it was major. It seems George Putnam was already married when he met Amelia. There were numerous scenes showing the tension developed between the leading characters. This drastically changes the storyline creating a much more realistic and believable story. So why were they cut? Here is a case where "poetic license" by the director has had a dramatic negative impact on the film.
To the film's credit, there are many beautiful scenes, all shot on location. Hilary Swank could pass as a twin sister to Amelia. Richard Gere, however is quite another story.
If they would just splice back in all the deleted scenes showing Putnam's first wife's part of the story, I could give the movie a couple more stars. But as is, two stars is the best I can go.
Buy the DVD. View the cut scenes first. Then view the main feature. You will get a better perspective of what is going between Amelia, George and his first wife.
To the film's credit, there are many beautiful scenes, all shot on location. Hilary Swank could pass as a twin sister to Amelia. Richard Gere, however is quite another story.
If they would just splice back in all the deleted scenes showing Putnam's first wife's part of the story, I could give the movie a couple more stars. But as is, two stars is the best I can go.
Buy the DVD. View the cut scenes first. Then view the main feature. You will get a better perspective of what is going between Amelia, George and his first wife.
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