February 11, 2010

Living only six miles from Purdue University all my life it’s virtually impossible to not have at least heard of Amelia Earhart, and thanks to our rotten educational system I certainly didn’t hear about her in school, so thankfully Mira Nair has taken the script from writers Ronald Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan, a script actually based on two biographies of the famed aviator, and directed this somewhat bland docudrama that is far more “docu” than drama. While I was moderately entertained, I was totally educated, both on Amelia (Hilary Swank) who pioneered women in aviation and even more so on George Putnam (Richard Gere), the father of modern day public relations.

The movie is a by-the-numbers documentary that includes real black and white footage of the era that seamlessly morphs into vivid color when the film replaces fact. We follow the journey of Amelia as a young girl looking to the skies watching planes made from wire and paper, till her ill-fated flight in the state-of-the-art Lockheed Electra in 1937. What was most revealing for me were all the flights she took before her most infamous final journey. I had no idea she was the first woman to cross the Atlantic, even if it was only as a passenger. And then she turned around and did it again by herself, then flew cross-country and across the pacific, and nearly made it around the world. She pioneered commercial flight, as we know it with shuttles between the big east coast cities, and she became one of America’s first spokeswomen, used with great effect by her husband, Putnam, to endorse a wide variety of products and clothing, and even flight safety.

A had some apprehension going into this review, mostly because the trailers and even the cover art hint at some big romantic chick flick, but Amelia manages to skirt this pitfalls and stick to the facts and the flying. There is a bit of romantic drama, both with her relationship with Putnam and her affair with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor), but as the deleted scenes clearly show, this was surgically removed from the final film. The end result is a relationship that seems more business than personal.

Sadly, the movie doesn’t have a traditional story or plot. After all, we know has it all ends, so it’s just a matter of dramatizing factual events to get us to that point making the final film feel like something that was started for the History Channel then bought by Lifetime and reworked. I’m not saying the movie is bad, but it might not be what most audiences expect, and I think Fox even has its doubts on its commercial success. After all, when my local Wal-Mart only gets 24 copies of Amelia for launch day, as opposed to 600 copies for Zombieland, the public as spoken.

But Amelia does offer an escape. You get to see attractive people and gorgeous aerial scenery. Hilary Swank is eerily transformed into Amelia with only a new haircut and some fake teeth. Richard Gere is dashing as ever but Ewan McGregor probably outclasses him on sex appeal. And then you have Christopher Eccleston as Fred Noonan, Amelia navigator on her final journey who must deal with a drinking problem and a sexual attraction to his pilot.

Filmmaking: 6
The whole production screams “Period Piece” and “Look at me Oscars”, but for some unexplained reason all the pieces are here but it just doesn’t come together. The casting is perfect, the camera work, both on the ground and in the air is phenomenal, and the whole look of the picture is quite amazing, but there is just nothing here to grab the viewer from a story standpoint. If you’re like me and know nothing about Amelia then it might hold your interest longer, otherwise you are just reliving her dramatized journals.

Visuals: 8
Amelia takes to the Blu-ray skies with a stunning 1080p transfer that captures the magic of those early years of flight. Colors are realistic and there is excellent use of archival footage that merges into black and white staged footage then slowly transforms into full color. Black levels are excellent and the contrast is sharp. Textures on clothes, planes, cars, and anything else pop off the screen with vivid detail. CG is seldom used, mostly for green screen driving and some of the larger, more historic wide shots of cities and such, but when it is its painfully obvious.

Sound: 8
Amelia sounds quite nice on Blu-ray with a DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix but not as nice as it could or should. The dialogue track is probably given the most attention and with lots of soft-spoken lines and thick accents I was amazed I could hear and understand every word. The rest of the sound design is pretty generic but suits the picture. There isn’t much LFE at all and the surround channels are extremely underutilized. The movie is very front-centric for voice and effects, and especially the wonderful score composed by Gabriel Yared.

Value: 6
Amelia delivers a fairly standard set of extras to the table. There is no commentary but the extras we do get are all in HD with the exception of the Movietone News footage, which I’m surprised has survived and looks this good. There is a 23-minute Making Amelia documentary that covers nearly every facet of production from casting to sets and location scouting. The Power of Amelia Earhart rehashes much of the information from the previous feature.

Of particular interest to me were the historic planes, so The Plane Behind the Legend was a fantastic look at avoiding CG and finding a real functioning Lockheed Electra over in France and getting its owner to fly it to South Africa to make the film. And then you have Re-Constructing the Planes of Amelia, another great feature that shows the creation of four life-size mock-ups used for the film. Then you have 14-minutes of Deleted Scenes, almost all of which deal with Putnam’s former wife and other romantic fluff that was better off removed from the final film. The included digital copy looks and sounds great on my iPhone.

Overall: 7.3
I really liked Amelia but I seriously doubt its appeal to all but the most diehard aviation fans or those who just can see and hear enough about Lady Lindy. For a movie about a woman who took unprecedented risks in her life, this film takes none, leaving you with a cold and calculated documentary that looks and sounds great, but ultimately leaves you wanting more. Either rent or wait for the price to drop a bit, but definitely watch it once and the Blu-ray version is the only way to experience this epic journey.