Fighter piloting is inherently cinematic, so when a new movie comes out in the vein of Memphis Belle and Top Gun, I already hear the swells of music and gunfire. But in the case of Red Tails, the new Anthony Hemingway drama that arrives in theaters January 20, the grace of the genre is replaced with spotty dialogue and catatonic performances. Cuba Gooding Jr., you may as well call this movie Plane Trip.
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You have to wince when a historical film conjures the same heaviness as Pearl Harbor. No, not even Pearl Harbor. More like the Faith Hill video for "There You'll Be" from the Pearl Harbor soundtrack. Except without doe-eyed Mr. Hartnett's liplock! Truly irredeemable.
The red-tailed carnage has its dazzling moments, but they're all undercut by the truly awful dialogue. "I feel like I'm driving my grandfather's Buick!" OK, pilot man, we get it: You got the "hand-me-down" planes. But can you explain the hand-me-down performances? Terrence Howard is downright phony when he mutters, "We have a RIGHT to fight for our country. The same as every other AMERICAN." He's less a person and more a Fourth of July t-shirt sold at a heartland gift shop.
I can't deny the ferocious redness of those planes, though. Seriously, we're looking at some vermilion aeronautics. If I saw them on a pack of Prismacolor pencils, I'd pick up a 24-pack right there. Otherwise? This is terminal.
VERDICT: Nosedive