Flyboys

Aroview: Soaring, occasionally hokey aviation adventure recalling the true-life exploits of the Lafayette Escadrille, a French fighter squadron patched together by a makeshift group of Americans who learn to fly bi-planes from scratch against the Germans during WWI.

Reliant heavily on spiffy array of dogfight sequences thrillingly rendered in CGI, the film is much less exhilarating as a human drama, deferring the bulk of its ground level action to bootcamp clichés and romantic melodrama, all the while ignoring the apparent horrors of war. James Franco heads the cast as a headstrong rancher whose boy’s own heroism rubs off on his fellow wingmen, while local lad Martin Henderson puts his handsome facial features to good use as the squadron’s strapping flying ace.