Steineded How sad is this?

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Robert J. Maxwell I don't understand why this film hasn't reached a wider audience. It's quite well done. It has action, a bit of romance, character development, a nice fat budget and splendid special effects. What's really left over amounts to minor points and nit picking. (Von Richthofen had dark hair; Matthias Schweighofer, who plays him here, is a blond Aryan.) Schweighofer is nearly perfect in the role. He projects an aristocrat's disdain for rules, which comes across as a mixture of elitism and trickery. But he's boyishly handsome and has a high voice, as if he'd just graduated from some fancy prep school and wowed the babes. He rarely loses his temper or shouts. He's never ruffled. He has an ingratiating smile. It's hard to resist, but behind it lies determination and a certain gnarly obsessive quality. In his early pursuit of celebrity, aiming at dreamy heights that no human being can achieve, he reminds me a little of Jay Gatsby or maybe Bernie Madoff.I admire the way in which the script treats the audience as reasonably perceptive adults. It doesn't spell everything out, as in a kindergarten class. In one scene Schweighofer has a chat with his best friend, who is busy installing a British engine in his airplane. Later, Schweighofer visits the Fokker plants where the manager complains that German pilots have been substituting British engines in their triplanes. The deviation was discovered because a modified Fokker had just been shot down by the British and the pilot killed. Schweighofer realizes that the dead German pilot must have been his best friend. He simply looks stricken. There is no dashing around, shouting demands, and no weeping. The next shot has him staring expressionless into the distance, holding the report in his hand. A less trusting movie would have shown us everything -- best friend goes down in flames uttering hoarse cries of agony. Then the crash. Then the rush to the site of the crash. Then the turning over of the body, face up. Then -- well, and so on.One more example. At the start, all the airplanes of all sides are the color of mud, camouflaged. The Baron decides to paint his a bright red all over, partly out of vanity, partly out of defiance of the rules, partly out of the realization that camouflage doesn't work anyway at ten thousand feet. During the remainder of the movie, the Germans fly airplanes of increasingly ornate and lurid designs, in imitation. Nothing is made of it but it's a symbol of Richthofen's celebrity.Oh, and one exception -- the gloomy atmosphere of the departure of Von Richthofen's final mission, the ominous score, the solemn good-byes. It goes on. If he weren't killed we'd feel cheated. The ending itself, though it skips the expected clichés, is sentimentalized.All of these biographical movies must be to some extent fictionalized. Who knows what Manfred and his nurse talked about in bed? Years ago I read "The Red Knight of Germany" and there was little of romance in it, and much of boar hunting while the Baron was on leave. (I reviewed the book, or rather my memory of the book, on Amazon.com.) He never seemed to be anti-war, although the movie has him advising surrender. It's a requirement that one we're intended to admire not be a war-monger, which is why Rommel so often is described as complicit in the plot against Hitler, which he was not.At any rate, Manfred von Richthofen, in life or in the movies, was quite a remarkable guy.

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stellarbiz Thought I would enjoy this movie, but found it to be slow, a bit boring, and a bit difficult to follow the plot and characters.Acting was okay, but could have been better. The disc should have contained English subtitles, but only had FRENCH subtitles on it. What if a deaf English-speaking person wished to view this movie? Flying scenes were well done but the CGI was too obvious. Trying to connect plot point "A" to "B" and so on, I found difficult. They could have approached it more as a documentary than trying to turn it into a historical romance.If you have an afternoon to spare, watch it. Otherwise, move along.Personally, I liked the horses in the movie the best!

aldebaran68 As an English viewer I thought the film was amusing. All these German actors speaking English well but with the German pronunciation. Its difficult to say flippant laid back things in English with a German pronunciation. Germans being by nature perfectionists can try too hard to be casual in English- doesn't quite come off...Otherwise the story is interesting, and the characters likable. I didn't take it too seriously historically because I know very little about the man. Its a fun, enjoyable WW1 'knights of the sky' movie.Next time though I'd advise a director to get the Germans to speak German with subtitles, and leave the flippant laid back English to the English actors - they do it much better. Otherwise we British will simply take the mickey...