I'd like to admit that it is wonderful to see a pure air combat movie after long time...Therefore whatever the quality of that movie was, it would still attract people to the theaters. Before evaluating the movie it is to be emphasized that les chevaliers du ciel shouldn't be compared to Top Gun for two principal reasons. Primo, Top Gun was reflecting the Cold War Era where dogfighting was still trendy and reasonable. Taking into account the fact that the modern air warfare excludes dog fighting and that even the definition and the rules of the war itself have been altered, an other top gun class movie shouldn't be anticipated within the foreseeable future. Secundo, there is not a "french" Tom Cruise in Europe..Although Tom Cruise may be criticized since he mostly exaggerates the characters he is playing; he was the only suitable guy for that role since an air warfare movie requires not only some fancy flying but also strip the wild personality and the psychology of the aviators. Therefore Tom Cruise's huge ego(when the original plot was completed Tom Cruise amended it totally in order to fit it to his demands which in that case brought a great success) would melt into an aviator's profile in a perfect way since flying a 30 million dollars airplane would require not only good piloting skills but also an exaggerated egocentricity. Actually the lack of richness of characters constitutes the main problem for les Chevaliers du Ciel..The movie is limited to its 3 main characters and when it comes to the secondary characters they are extremely amorphous. Although you are looking for support (great acting of Val Kilmer, Michael Ironside and Tom Skerrit), what you get is the "she" aviators and their elastic bodies. Here we may compare the two movies since actually that is the point where Top Gun was criticized mostly and approached of being a "gay" movie since there was not enough room for ladies except Kelly Mcgillis..But I may say that it has also been the most challenging point of Top Gun. A movie that would blow your level of testosterone and adrenaline without leaning against erotism and soap opera clichés. The locomotive must have been the spoiled aviator egos and their lives on edge melted into macho acts like dogfighting or men's lockers' room tensions. Actually that was a smart move from the producers of Top Gun. Since they were probably not looking for repeating bestselling clichés but making, creating a new pure cliché:Top Gun. Although les chevaliers du ciel may never be a new top gun (the irony lies behind the reason why both movies were strongly backed up by the army:to make the aviation desirable again and to recruit more aviators) that wouldn't be because it was a bad movie or that because it didn't deserve the money you paid to buy a ticket but because the lath for such a movie has been set too high..Finally I should admit that the aerial plans(approx. 600 plans which is a record high) were stimes far better than top gun thanks to the new filming tech. But there was still sth missing up there..which is not a technical deficiency but a fundamental absence: a soul!!! Those who remember the sundowns in top gun would understand me better..it was not a romantic cliché but was considered as a perfect opportunity to color the planes and the oceans to yellow and red..a technique developed by Victor Hugo in his famous novel:les misérables..is not it ironic that this time french men who were the father of such a literary language did miss it in their first time?.by the way have you seen any sundown in les chevaliers du ciel??
Review of Sky Fighters
