Customer Reviews

Amelia

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

Much negative has been said about this movie. Having a casual interest in this figure's disappearance caused me to check out the film. The cast is strong and the settings are beautiful. When viewed on Blu-ray, the movie really captures in superb detail the landscapes that the aviatrix herself witnessed. I found the film engaging and enjoyed the bit about Amelia's flight with Eleanor Roosevelt. If you are looking for action or something rife with tension, then pass on this. However, this is a well-executed character piece with convincing actors who really bring a time in America's past to life...

"Amelia" (2009) takes the remarkable life of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart and turns it into a disappointingly routine film. Hilary Swank and Richard Gere try to enliven the lackluster script, but not even director Mira Nair can sustain viewer interest. Stuart Dryburgh's impressive cinematography is wasted. A two-hour catalog of missed opportunities.

I thought, actually, that this would be a good movie because I love time pieces, biographies, movies about strong women, and in the previews Hillary Swank seemed to nail the part. So I watched it. But I was majorly disappointed.

First, it was such a slow pick up that I lost interest and started to fall asleep. Richard Gere's character is so unremarkable that---. I was annoyed at Hillary's Kansas drawl because it seemed difficult for her to express emotion while keeping a steady accent. But mostly, I was irritated by the whole storyline. Couldn't the writers make her ambitions of flight a little more exciting? It was sickening how much fluff and sentimental lines they threw in the movie (reminded me of August Rush--ick) yet there was no substance. What about the amazing Amelia who captured the interest of millions during the Great Depression? What about her maverick spark that threw controversies and set a new standard for women in America? I think the movie would have fared better without the affair with whats-his-face, which they awkwardly left in the film.

Amelia's character wasn't one I wanted to root for because I thought she was kind of crazy and unrelatable. I mean, not once did she have any doubts, showed any fear, or anything other than courage and yet I was not impressed. I've read a lot of reviews that said Gere's part was flat, uninteresting, etc. but Amelia was the protagonist with only one dimension, and thus gets a lower grade. By the end of the movie I just rolled my eyes at everything Amelia did/said and was sure glad when it was over.

"Amelia", a movie about the famous pilot Amelia Earhart, was not quite what I expected. Miss Earhart was a heroine who fearlessly attacked and conquered numerous flying records in the years before world War II. She was beloved by most in my parents generation.

"Amelia" (played by Hilary Swank) does a good job of telling the story of Earhart's personal and business life. We experience with them the difficulties obtaining financing for flying events. We view the budding romance and marriage of Amelia and George Putnam (Played by Richard Gere). We also learn of Amelia's feminist attitudes and her affair with Gene Vidal (well played by Ewan McGregor). So as a film about Miss Earhart's personal life, Amelia is excellent.

"Amelia" has a great cast, but the characters appear one dimensional.. I have seen movies where each of these main actors were superior in their parts. In this film both Swank and Gere present cardboard characterizations of the people they play. I believe that the script is the problem. The scenes provided to the actors leave little room to demonstrate their acting skills. For example, George Putman does occasionally appear hurt by the actions of his wife, but the scenes are too short to allow Gere to capitalize on the emotions that Putman must have felt.

Amelia" was a bit of a disappointment to me on the way it presented flying. I expected this film to enhance the love of flying by helping the audience feel the joy of solo flight. There were some brief scenes of Amelia flying but they were mostly just a glimpse not a celebration of flight. Amelia Earhart is best known to us as a person who loves flying more than anything.
I believe that much more emphasis needed to be put on the flying itself. With modern special effects, communicating the feeling of flying could easily be done.

Amelia is a decent film that is moderately entertaining. Overall the movie is average.

This fine movie is a return to the traditional tenets of film making, with memorable performances by all involved. Absolutely gorgeous cinematography, and some of the best flying sequences since Top Gun.

If you're really into the modern trend of MTV-style quick choppy sequences, this film isn't for you.

But as a lovingly crafted bio-pic and traditional romance, with plenty of exotic locales and a detailed portrayal of the thirties thrown in for good measure, I found this movie thoroughly entertaining and a real treat.

**1/2

Even two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank can't elevate "Amelia" much above the level of the standard great-person-of-history biopic. Amelia Earhart was, of course, the pioneer aviator who became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, and who, in 1937, met a tragic fate when she and her navigator Fred Noonan (Christopher Eccleston) disappeared over the Pacific in a failed attempt to be the first pilot to ever circumnavigate the globe.

Swank certainly looks the part of the famed flyer, and she has the voice and mannerisms down pat as well. The problem is that the screenplay by Ronald Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan (from the novels "East to the Dawn" and "The Sound of Wings") doesn't provide the actress with the opportunity to delve much beneath the surface of the character. For all Swank's efforts at mimicry, Earhart stubbornly remains a cardboard cutout of a woman who refused to allow the society around her to dictate what she, or any woman for that matter, could and could not do, and who lived life to the fullest, even though she wound up paying the ultimate price for it.

Even her long-term relationship with and eventual marriage to book publisher George Putnam (Richard Gere) and her brief dalliance with pilot and future Federal Aviation administrator Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor) come across as standard-issue melodrama, executed without flair or passion.

The movie is at its most interesting when it's concentrating on the early history of aviation and the part Earhart herself played in it. A brief scene in which Earhart takes Eleanor Roosevelt on a night-flight over Washington D.C. is a rare moment when the movie itself actually manages to soar above the earthbound histrionics. And the flight scenes themselves are, as one would expect, visually stimulating and emotionally captivating.

But low-wattage performances, pedestrian direction (a real shock coming from the highly gifted Mira Nair) and conventional storytelling (it's all done in the form of a huge book-ended flashback, of course) keep "Amelia" from truly taking flight.

The last thing I expected to be doing on a rare weekday off was to be going to a movie. But when I opened my newspaper On tha October morning back in 2009 I actually spotted a film that I was interested in seeing. "Amelia" is a biographical motion picture that dramatizes the life of the legendary female aviator Amelia Earhart. Since I am a huge history buff I simply could not resist.

Now if you are looking non-stop action, strong charactors and breathtaking special effects then I suspect that "Amelia" will probably not be your cup of tea. Director Mira Nair has given us a film that more closely resembles the films of the 1940's and 1950's. Amelia Earhart (Hilary Swank) was a spirited young woman when she arrived in New York to meet with book publisher George Putman (Richard Gere) to discuss her possible participation in a trans-Atlantic flight. Putnam was offering her a book deal and fame but what the public did not know was that Amelia was to be nothing more than an observer on that first flight across the Atlantic. This revelation came as a complete surprise to me as well. Nevertheless Amelia Earhart would become an overnight sensation. Meanwhile, George Putman had fallen head over heels for the pretty young farm girl from Kansas. Amelia had little interest in being tied down but Putnam's persistance finally won the day. The couple was married in 1931. Shortly thereafter Amelia would meet up with a dashing young man who shared her love of flying. Gene Vidal (Evan McGregor) would become Amelia's soul mate resulting in a very uncomfortable triangle for a period of time.

But there was certainly no force on earth that was going to keep Amelia grounded. In 1932, a mere five years after Charles Lindbugh turned the trick, Amelia Earhart completed the first successful trans-Atlantic solo flight by a woman. Then in 1935, Earhart became the first person ever to fly from Hawaii to California. Now Amelia wanted to reach for the golden ring. She wanted to be the first person in history to fly all the way around the globe. There were so many obstacles to be overcome but Amelia was bound and determined. "Amelia" does an outstanding job of chronicling the events of that final flight, most particularly during those last tensioned filled hours. Her husband George and the entire nation anxiously awaited word of her fate.

When all is said and done I really did like "Amelia". While this is not a great film I do not take as dim a view of it as many of the critics. I suspect that most of these critics are a good deal younger than I am. I believe that older audiences will flock to "Amelia" since there are very few films that appeal to this demographic these days. Also, given the historical nature of the film I believe it will be quite successful when it is released on DVD. In my view this one certainly rates as a solid +3 offering. Nothing wrong with that. Recommended.

This movie is very boring and certainly not a tribute to Amelia Earhart! You can find more interesting information about Earhart on the internet under biographies.

Overall a great inpsiring true story about women in aviation that was several sandwhiches short of delivering it to screen.
The movie follows Amelia on her final flight, with flashbacks that take us back to how she got on her first officially noticable flight, and continues to follow her life up to that final journey around the world.
I wasn't impressed with her as a character in the movie (the way they portrayed her and designed her in the script) nor did I enjoy Ms. Swank's interpretation of her (I see she is one of the executive producer's which means she has a major say in who plays the title role). And I was not terribly intrigued with how they portrayed her marriage and that relationship. It did not understand why they chose what they chose to include in the movie, leads me to believe they left out a whole bunch of other things. I wonder who it was that gave that direction to the script writer, if they were so directed.
I did not like the pacing of the movie either, as it seemed to drag on in areas, perhaps because they tried to cram too much into one movie.
If you're interested in aviation, you may or may not want to see this movie. Course if you love Ms. Swank, then this is the movie for you.
I won't be buying it for my library.

I tried to like "Amelia." The life story of the legendary American aviatrix Amelia Earhart is a fascinating one, even without the mystery surrounding her world flight in 1937. A great story is here, but no one seems to know how to tell it. With Hilary Swank's strong performance as Amelia Earhart, the film flies, but somehow it does not soar.

The 111-minute film is rushed, trying to cover so many aspects of Amelia Earhart - her romances, ambitions, achievements and the final flight - but the film's descriptions of them are all superficial. Her determination to fly is shown, but not her spirit as a pioneering pilot. Her successful cross-Atlantic flight is told, but that epoch-making event, which should be more inspirational, is not moving as drama or intense as action enough, because the aviation sequence lacks the details (or the "build-up") that is necessary to explain the greatness of her accomplishment. In short, the film's story looks cursory, while real Amelia Earhart's life was full of extraordinary episodes.

Richard Gere plays George P. Putnam, a successful publisher and promoter, who later married America Earhart. The film suggests conflicts in their relationships, but instead of exploring the reasons behind them, director Mira Nair hurries to the next scene. Ewan McGregor is totally wasted as Gene Vidal (father of author Gore), so is Mia Wasikowska as Elinor Smith.

The flying sequences are beautifully done (though special effects need improvement), and the story is great, though it deserves a better treatment.