Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

dimplet If you haven't already seen Memphis Belle, go ahead and watch it before reading this review; it's reasonably entertaining, and I don't want to spoil it for you with my comments. Spoiler alert:I have watched Memphis Belle several times over the years, and it looks weaker each time. When it came out on VHS I gave a copy to a friend who was a long-time pilot, and he didn't think much of it. And I see from the review by Author: ianlouisiana from United Kingdom, someone who was there in England at the time, that the acting just doesn't match the way people behaved back then. My first thought on my latest viewing is that she is right, and almost everyone was over-acting, presumably at the insistence of the director, Michael Caton-Jones. Most of the performances are corny, even, sadly, John Lithgow's. But there is a deeper problem: All of the crew, except the pilot, behave like they were 12 years old. This is not how people behaved back then, and certainly not in the military during World War 2. Back then, graduating from high school was more like graduating from college is today; people were far more mature, because they had to be -- they had to find a job, and in the Depression. Being in the military aged you fast during WWII. Just look at the documentaries from the war. My guess is it added 10 years to your age in maturity. Plus, being in a flight crew was special duty, which, I assume, required extra maturity, given the danger, responsibility, and price of the airplane. I can't imagine the Army allowing such infantile whiners into a B17, or that they would still be so immature after 24 missions. Putting an embarrassing sign on the back of your buddy and other mean-spirited horseplay during a mission over Nazi Germany is hard to imagine in real life. If this were pure fiction and you wanted to give it a MASH touch of absurd humor, that's a director's right. But this was based on a true story, and a remarkable one, so the acting and script should have been more realistic. The movie's strength is giving a sense of the danger in a bombing run over Germany. but there are plenty of movies that do that, and better. Of course, one of the best air battle movie is "The Battle of Britain," and it's companion BBC documentary. I admire period movies that get the sense of the time right. It's not just about avoiding anachronistic items, but of getting the feel, the mood, the character of the period. Visually, Memphis Belle gets it. In other respects, the movie comes close, but doesn't quite succeed in transporting you back in time to 1943. The childish acting and silly gimmicks like the fellow going on and on about opening a national hamburger franchise get in the way. You feel that what they know about WWII was based on watching some WWII era B movies. An example of a movie that did succeed in recreating the war and time, totally, was Das Boot. It, too, was based on a true story, written by the embedded journalist. Another is Yanks. In 1990, when Memphis Belle was made, there were enough people still alive from that time to tell those involved what it was really like, plus there was the original documentary. But I guess that's not the sort of movie they really wanted to make. Too bad. It could have been a classic.---As a side note, I am saddened by the persistently anti-American sentiment expressed by so many reviewers over virtually any American war movie that does not co-star their country. One states that despite a British director, etc.: "Fair enough but couldn't the characters have mentioned that WW2 was a joint operation ? Watching this you'll be left thinking America was fighting alone." I can assure you, Theo Robertson from Isle Of Bute, Scotland, that while we are a nation of drooling dolts and imbeciles, no American is so stupid as to think the U.S. fought WWII alone. We know Britain fought, too, and bravely. We even know who your wartime leaders were: Prime Minister Sherlock Holmes followed by Colonel Blimp. Anyone who gets their history exclusively from the movies is a fool, so they are beyond help. But even if they did, they would not be this misinformed. All they would have to do is watch Patton to know about Britain's valuable contribution in Africa! (Just kidding.) And then there's A Bridge Too Far, from MGM, if you want co-star billing (and that other Bridge movie). Look, Britain, America (and William Wyler) made "Mrs. Minniver," and without even once mentioning Lend-Lease, so get off our backs!!!Have a nice day.

Michael Neumann There's a reason why they don't make war films like this anymore: it's hard these days to sell the idea (Desert Storm aside) of a good and noble war. Which makes this dramatic re-creation of a World War II bombing mission (by the first 8th Air Force B-17 to complete a full tour of duty) an anachronistic throwback to those crowd-pleasing propaganda movies made while the conflict was still being fought. Much effort went into the airborne battle scenes, some of which are undeniably exciting despite the obvious F/X work, but the film collapses whenever there's a break in the action. Monte Merrick's one-dimensional screenplay presents the horror of modern mechanical warfare as a grand adventure fought by reluctant heroes: those magnificent stock characters in their flying machines. And the triumphant, champagne-popping finale has all the emotional credibility of an Air Force recruitment ad. Let's get real: a war film, in this day and age, with a happy ending?

The_Other_Snowman I first saw this movie on video round about 1991, when I was about seven years old or so. I enjoyed it then, because it had airplanes in it, and there was nothing particularly offensive or difficult for a seven year old boy to understand.Watching it again some nineteen years later, I'm struck by the exact same things. It's a very family-friendly war movie, earnestly trying to show us the difficult lives of American bomber pilots in Europe in 1943. The cast of characters come out of a guidebook for writing war movies, complete with The Religious One ("There's always a religious one," says John Lithgow's character), The Scared One, The Good-Luck Charm, The Smartass, and The Captain. The screenplay hits all the familiar notes: the crew pulling together for one last mission, overcoming obstacles, bonding as a surrogate family.The actors all do a good job. Reed Diamond, Sean Astin, Matthew Modine, and Eric Stoltz are the most noteworthy (and how young they all were in 1990!), plus Lithgow and David Strathairn on the ground. Modine is almost funny as the straight-laced pilot who seems uncomfortably aware of just how boring he really is. Stoltz stands out in the thankless role of the all-around nice guy who gets wounded.The flying scenes are exceptional. Real B-17s were filmed at real wartime airfields, and there's a bare-bones authenticity about a lot of it. The scenes inside the Memphis Belle, where most of the movie takes place, do an excellent job of showing you how cramped, cold, and noisy a place like that could be. Not to mention dangerous: the action scenes when German fighters attack the bombers flick by at a very fast pace, which must be something like what the bomber crews experienced. All this, of course, has been cleaned up for movie audiences: real bomber crews would never have taken off their oxygen masks or engaged in the lengthy conversations and horseplay featured in the film.So it's a sincere and generally harmless movie, saturated in nostalgia, motivated by a desire to pay tribute to its subjects. That leads it into clichéd territory, leaving me with the feeling that the producers dusted off a screenplay dating to the 1950s, only adding a few lines here and there for modern audiences. Not entirely a bad thing, mind you, but not all that it could have been. Notable, however, is the total absence of the sort of flag-waving patriotism we've come to expect from period war films: there's nary an American flag in sight, and the film is dedicated to all the pilots and aircrews who lost their lives in the war -- not just the Allies.

screenman I have to confess that when I first saw this movie, the term 'Memphis Bull' came into mind. Here was the USAF carpeting the krauts with schmaltz bombs.However, after watching it a third or fourth time, I've begun to 'lighten up'. It's so easy to forget just how young these aircrews really were. Most of them were just kids carrying a profound and terrifying responsibility way beyond their years. Taken in this light, the acting is quite believable, though I find the whining self-absorption still a little tiresome. It's something you don't see in a British air-war movie (I'm particularly thinking about 'Dambusters' here) and maybe that's a cultural thing. But then Britain hasn't really made any war movies for years. We made enough during the decade after the war to last us a lifetime. However; that was a different generation. For this reason I wonder if the behaviour of these young actors from the 1990's is actually authentic for the period. Perhaps there's a survivor out there who can tell.Combat sequences are extremely well done. The sense of precarious vulnerability in a flimsy fuselage has never been made so manifest. Likewise, the deafening clatter of machine guns and empty shell-cases and the intimacy of suffering in a confined space were things quite tangible. It was extremely gripping stuff. But that mawkish sentimentality seemed to undermine their impact.This is a movie that would have benefited from a bit of British stiff-upper-lip. Even if the emotional excess of the actors really was true to form, we certainly didn't need to have it so heavily emphasised with that overloading orchestral schmaltz-fest of incidental music. In my opinion, the intensity of the movie was such as to render incidental music quite superfluous. The sound of the wind and the straining engines, and the suffering and relief of the fliers were more than enough to carry the message home and land it safely - albeit on one wheel. Here again, the makers of 'Dambusters' were wise enough to confine its bombastic theme music to the credits, and let the action and actors do the talking.To sum up then; it's well worth a watch (but less of a listen). American Airforce crews suffered terribly during WW2, and at least one movie to honour their courage and contribution was needed. I just think they would have been better served with a greater emphasis on truth and action (this work certainly does that) and less of the emotional baggage.By the way; this movie also boasts one of the best wartime jokes I've ever heard. I won't try to tell you it - it's too long.