Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Executscan Expected more

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

justbusinessthebook I was a little surprised at all of the negative commentary here. I found the movie's acting appropriate. It told a story without being judgmental. Really, who needs to know the reasons behind why Ms. Earheart had two guys on the edge all of the time. The reasons seemed quite clear to me. She was a free spirit and on the move all of the time. She did what men did in an era when women weren't supposed to do what men did, flying or otherwise.She challenged the limitations for women in the 1930's. Who needs excuses for that. And, she took a risk that would have won her big if she and her navigator had found that impossible island, and other factors had not played against her landing on it, instead of her disappearing into the ocean.Yes, I was surprised to learn that she had a navigator on board because I had always thought she 'died alone'.The story is told well. The filming, in my humble opinion, was cinematic and appropriately framed. I was disappointed to see that the film did not, apparently, win any awards.It is also a love story of great interest in the end.I applaud this movie BECAUSE it did endeavour to be FACTUAL instead of being on the edge of someone's perverted sense of fantasy or sexual voyeurism. I will be buying the DVD for 'my collection' on the merit of the story and documentation that comes along with movie...An interesting story presented in a manner that maintained my interest throughout... the stars in this movie all performed the characters well, mimicking what is seen in the real life clips that accompany the DVD. To me, that bears more merit than seeking to entice the audience through titillating explanation of Amelia's sexuality. There is enough of that stuff available in other movies. For once, a movie that concentrated on THE STORY and not the story the sexually starved of our nation would have liked to have seen???

juneebuggy Ultimately this is a very dull movie even with everything going for it. Beautiful cinematography, a brilliant performance from Hilary Swank who embodies Earhart (looks, voice, mannerisms) a nice blend of action and romance with some fine male leads in Richard Gere & Ewan McGregor.This should have been a great movie but was instead boring, pretentious even, with wasted potential of an interesting and intriguing historical figure and some great actors. I read a couple of reviews that described Amelia as "Oscar bait" and a "prestige picture" hoping for critical acclaim. That seems to hit the nail on he head.Amelia is a biopic, taking a look at the life of legendary American pilot Amelia Earhart, who disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 in an attempt to make a flight around the world. 9/7/13

lois-lane33 A spoiler for this film wold be different. It's not a bad film-I am a fan of Hilary Swank so I liked it because she was in it if nothing more. There was no new light shed on the story of Amelia Earhart by this movie nor did I really expect anything new from it either. It is well done both from an acting and a setting perspective with very detailed sets that look exactly like I imagine it wold have looked back in the time of Amelia Earhart. There are many theories about what happened to Amelia Earhart but I find that mostly people talk about some very thin ocean floor evidence or some equally thin photographic evidence concerning what is supposedly part of a plane sticking out of the water on the beach of some tiny island in the Pacific. A bit of research will reveal Canton island as in interesting possibility as a landing place for Amelia Earhart. Canton was used as a LAN radio base in WW2 but had previously been used in 1937 to host a National Geographic gathering to witness a full solar eclipse at Canton island on June 8 1937. Amelia reportedly went missing on July 2 1937. Women like Amelia were into being aviation pioneers and in 1937 they were getting ready to start crossing the Pacific in big four engined planes that needed to refuel-in places like Canton- which was actually subsequently used to land & refuel the big Pacific crossing passenger planes of the day. Maybe Amelia went off to pilot such planes and be the first women airline pilot in lieu of seeking fame in other area of aviation that she was perhaps tired with. Anyway, its good that they made this film-its better than not having anything recent out there at all. Having someone to navigate for you if you are flying a plane makes it pretty safe, I think.

Nicholas Barrett If you are here to check out reviews of "Amelia" in the hope of a gripping cinematic adventure, please be warned to lower your expectations. My own proved far too high, founded on my longstanding admiration for the charismatic 1930s heroine of the skies and on a love of flying in old turboprop planes and noisy small aircraft whenever the chance arises, sidelining guilt about my bit part in aviation's major contribution to ozone depletion. Of course Amelia Earhart was free of today's environmental worries, with great distances topping her list of challenges.When I heard that the dependable and gifted Hilary Swank had been cast in the star role, my hopes soared with a feeling that she would be perfect for the part like the smart, spunky and enthusiastic all-American girl she seems to be. And excellent she is. I had doubts about Richard Gere in the role of the publisher who becomes Earhart's fund-raising promoter and more. My prejudice was unfairly based on a period when I sat through someone's young appetite for some of the sloppiest high romance movies ever endured. Back then, Gere then seemed omnipresent and utterly beyond credibility and I started avoiding his films!But years pass. In fact, Gere does very well in the role of the patient and increasingly affectionate George P. Putnam, while Ewan McGregor is good as the commercial flight pioneer Gene Vidal. He also becomes part of a love triangle, testified to by his son Gore. Equally worthy of mention are Cherry Jones in a cameo part as First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Christopher Eccleston as Amelia's navigator Fred Noonan on her final ill-fated bid to be the first woman to fly round the world.Amelia lifts us off the ground in the lengthy flight sequences in Mira Nair's film, the parts I usually enjoyed the most. We are granted the spectacular views that any airborne movie should dish up, with some splendid photography and a taste of the thrill of the rides across different oceans between continents. And when Earhart succeeds in her accomplishments, we see the ticker-tape parades and meet younger female fliers whom she does her best to encourage in a man's world.So what's so disappointing about "Amelia"? It's hard to pin down precisely, but to start with both script and direction are serviceable but pedestrian, failing fully to flesh out some key characters and at least sustain constant interest. The very worst of the film, after spells of boredom despite valiant efforts by the actors, concerns the last known hours of Earhart's short life, which make for a missed opportunity.The aviator is world famous for attempting the almost impossible, risking all on a bid to complete her planetary tour by landing on tiny Howland Island in the Pacific to refuel and fly on to coastal America. If any true-life exploit shown on screen should generate a sense of action and high adventure, that was the biggest in Earhart's career, but Nair's movie falls regrettably short of the reality.True, the film-makers portray in some detail one of the controversial accounts of the fatal communications breakdown between Amelia's Lockheed Elektra and the USS Itasca moored off Howland, which led to the disappearance of the aircraft. Yet hardly any real tension builds up in these climactic scenes aboard plane and ship. The cast seems all but abandoned to make their best of a bad job, not for the first time, which I blame on script flaws and unadventurous direction.Maybe Nair tried to plod her way too close to all the details she and the producers knew to be accurate, without venturing into a little creative licence to raise the dramatic stakes. But when I rate her film 6/10, that's an acknowledgement of the background research and of factors such as the acting and some striking sets. These mean I am ready to see it more than once while wishing it could have been much more exciting, like Earhart's life often was.I get a far bigger emotional punch from listening to Heather Nova singing "I Miss My Sky (Amelia Earhart's Last Days)" on her "Redbird" album than I did from that last act of the film. Nobody knows what really happened to Amelia and Fred, but legends persist that they did manage to land somewhere unknown. Nova's allegorical lyrics imply by conjecture that the aircraft was out of fuel or a write-off.After all, in the film Earhart and Noonan do indeed land in places as yet unknown! Location titles solemnly inform viewers that they are in Pakistan, which did not exist until 1947, a decade after their global circumnavigation attempt, and also set them down in Mali, which was then no nation but a part of sprawling French West Africa. But these are quibbles.For all my reservations, I recommend "Amelia" not only to die-hard Earhart fans who will certainly be able to recognize her in Swank's well-prepared performance, but also to a broader audience that might be interested in a movie about a succession of some of the most daring aviation exploits of all time. Like I said, the film does manage to fly - but mainly when it's already airborne.