Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Brandin Lindsey Usually introduced as an early action film, this movie has a surprising amount of depth and conflict among the characters. The bonds of brotherhood, romance, and questioning the meaning of life are much more prevalent factors in the film than war and combat. Created by the eccentric Howard Hughes with a notoriously eventful production period, one is blind-sided by the character development found within. Even today, over 80 years after it's production, the struggles of the characters are still relevant and I find myself relating to both brothers.Ironically, the action parts of this action film bring the entire picture to a screeching halt. Extremely early in action filming, the action scenes are difficult to follow and full of awkward camera angles. After a while, I lose track of who is shooting at who and become incredibly bored with the action scenes. Overall, not a bad movie. A great example of a decent film of the period, with a little bit of everything. Definitely worth a watch.

jjnxn-1 Of interest more as a historical landmark than a great film. The aerial scenes are very impressive especially those in rudimentary color but the acting of the leads keeps the film from being remarkable. An 18 year old Jean Harlow is very green as a high society Jezebel but holds the screen with the magnetism of a star plus it is the only chance to see what she looked like in color which in a strange way makes her more real even if the color is garish. The same can not be said of her co-stars. Both Hall and Lyon have moments that register but by and large they are stiff and dull, you have to wonder how much better this would have been with Gable & Spencer Tracy or James Cagney in the leads. John Darrow is good as Karl but his part is small. It's easy to see why this was a big hit on release just as talkies were dawning but now it is more of an artifact of time and place that a compelling viewing experience.

pontifikator This action movie was directed by Howard Hughes, and it stars Ben Lyon, James Hall, and Jean Harlow. Monte Rutledge (Lyon) and Roy Rutledge (Hall) are brothers attending Oxford. If I have them straight, Roy is straitlaced and Monte is a womanizer and coward. Helen (Harlow) is Roy's girlfriend, and he thinks she's swell. However, she's a woman of easy virtue who sets herself up to be pursued by every man that's attractive to her, including Monte who doesn't say no.NOTE: THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THE FOLLOWING REVIEWThere's a long, not very interesting beginning to this two-hour epic in which we're set up with the back story. We are shown that Monte is a cowardly womanizer and that Roy stands up for his brother to save the family name. We learn that Helen lets Roy think she's a moral, upstanding girl, but she seduces every man she wants, and Roy is so moral he can't see what's really going on. Okay, enough of that. We learn that Jean Harlow can't do an English accent at all and that Messrs. Lyon and Hall aren't too good at it.Finally, World War I breaks out, and Roy and Monte join the Royal Flying Corps, Helen is a volunteer for the canteens, and they all end up in or around Paris. Monte starts claiming he's sick and can't fly all his missions, so others are being sent instead, getting shot down in his place. The squadron resents him, and he volunteers for a dangerous mission to prove he's not yellow. Roy volunteers to fly it with him. Finally, the action starts.Lyon is quite good as the yellow coward, and I actually felt sympathy for him in several scenes. Hughes was not as his best as director here, and the script and dialogue were not the greatest. "It's getting dark," Monte says, as he lays dying (or lies dying -- who knows these days which is which -- maybe he dies lying). "Roy! Where are you?" even though Roy is holding him in his arms. Several of the scenes were unintentionally hilarious, a mix of the Three Stooges and Monte Python's Flying Circus, which is ironic since the brothers are being chased by someone else's Flying Circus of World War I.The best scenes are the bombing of the ammo depot and the dog fight. I can't imagine how they choreographed and arranged the dog fight scenes, with one mid-air collision between planes -- real planes, really colliding. There were camera planes filming the action and cameras mounted on the planes showing the pilots, sky, and earth in all the chaos of rolls, spins, and dives.I felt bad for Monte in the bomber. The German fighters are faster, and he can see them catching up. There's nothing to be done -- they can't dodge them in the bomber, they can't fly faster; all Monte can do is plead for Roy (who's piloting the aircraft) to do something. He's a coward who can see his death approaching, and he can't run away this time, he can't leave it to Roy to get him out of it.But eventually the real drama ends, and we're back in the staged dialogue and campy acting. I'm not sure I recommend this movie for casual watching. It's interesting to see the blonde bombshell at the age of 18 or 19 -- she was quite a good actress, much more natural than Lyon and Hall. This movie was her big break after a few years of bit parts, often uncredited. Her costumes here are revealing, and the version of "Hell's Angels" I saw on DVD had some scenes in color, showing off her costumes and her to great effect. (She died of an infection at the age of 26, so her career was quite short.)And it's interesting to watch a movie directed by Howard Hughes. But it turns out Mr. Hughes wasn't all that good with actors. Like Cecil B. DeMille, he needed action and spectacle. But the action and spectacle are great. There are scenes with a Zeppelin bombing London that are breathtaking, and when Hughes has actors in action, he was quite good with them. Unfortunately, too much of this movie was outside Howard Hughes's area of greatest competence.

XweAponX I first heard of this film while watching Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator" and had wanted to see it ever since - I finally obtained a copy of a restoration. What makes this movie interesting is that you can actually see the cusp on which it lies between Silent and Sound. The use of sound in this film is entirely a novelty, as it can be viewed and understood totally without a soundtrack.Ironically, Director Hughes made this film primarily to prove that a good film could be made totally outside of the existing studio system- But in the process, he created a masterpiece and a blueprint for action/adventure films for years to come.When viewing the amazing aerial sequences it is difficult to imagine that every visual effect was created practically. In the first half of the film we have a huge Zeppelin being crashed into by a biplane, and this looked like no miniature, as the wreckage descends you can see the flaming fuselage of the biplane also descending. When the dirigible hits the ground, the effect is massive. The superstructure of the zeppelin is visible within the flames of the wreckage, which appears to fall on a crashed biplane and real actual life-sized human actors are running from it.Upon seeing this film one has to admit that Howard Hughes, eccentric as he was, was a very fine director, not only in the action/aerial battle sequences, but also in the establishing scenes at the beginning of the film- This, I was NOT expecting, and I was happy to be able to sit down and enjoy this massive work. Thankfully, the ridiculous HAYES code was not being strictly enforced at the time of this film's release, and so we can enjoy mild language, blood oozing from gunshot holes, blatant sexual scenes, and low cut, VERY low cut, clothing on a very young Jean Harlow.I do not think I have seen any of the actors in this film in any other works, except for Harlow - They were all unknown faces. Thankfully, Harlow did not stay obscure and unknown for long.