The Aeronauts

If you want to watch a movie about the true events that "inspired" this movie, then go watch a documentary. If you want to watch a decent, family-friendly, period piece, with an interesting plot, then you may find this movie entertaining as I did.

I had no prior knowledge of the true events this movie is based on, but watching it piqued my interest to learn more.

We've got two posh people with a dream. They have a balloon, they fly in it.

Obviously they nearly die a few times, because people don't fly in balloons when there is blue sky and no wind they choose a cloudy day with isolated storms, makes sense. In those days they didn't have weather forecasts so that meant people couldn't look up and see what it was like, lol.

They also seem to get up to at least 39,000 feet, but of course a thin jacket that will be enough at -30c or more, hat or gloves? Not me mate. They also have Indian and other friends of different ethnicities to fill in a token diversity quota, it's not as if people were fighting inequality in those days. Also in real life the woman in the story was a man. Where does 'based-on real events' end and 'completely made up twaddle' begin? Why not make it totally fictional rather than air-brushing fake characters into and real ones out of history? What's next a story about the first climbing of Everest with Emily Hillary the bee-keeper from Nigeria and her Sherpa lesbian transgender lover Tina-zing?

Obviously the in-basket tension isn't enough so they cut in and out to flashbacks with rich people being posh and rich to help rope-in some of the Downton Abbey market, the whole story could have been told in the balloon without the need to play dress-up.

It's an stupid airbrushed version of history, what's even more stupid that they could have made it totally fictional and about people actually fighting discrimination, but they just pretend everyone is thinking as 2019, but wearing top hats. People fought for trade unions, the womens right to vote and not being spat at in the street because their skin had the incorrect pigment. How does this airbrushing help anything? It's the worst kind of denial, like saying the holocaust didn't happen because it's depressing and disturbing. We can't let truth get in the way of fun times. This movie is for smiles on faces bums on seats and money in our pocket.

Might be good to pass an few hours on a long haul flight. The acting is good, the music is good, the visual effects are stunning, could have been much better, but it wasn't terrible. A marshmellow of a movie, nice to look at and to eat, but nutritionally lacking and can make you feel sick if you over indulge.

The Aeronauts is a very tense and technically brilliant film. Some of the visuals this movie manages to pull off were incredible and the visual effects, stunts, and camera work were so good, I didn't doubt for a second that the characters were in that balloon and one second away from falling to their death. Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones also have a very natural chemistry, and while the scenes that take place outside of the balloon were formulaic, they weren't completely insufferable. As far as historical accuracy goes, if I wanted historical accuracy I would read a Wikipedia article. I watch movies for thrills and entertainment, and this move delivers a lot of thrills.

In a truly bizarre twist, the makers of The Aeronauts (2019) decided to tell the story about an 1862 hot-air balloon flight by scientsts James Glaisher and Henry Coxwell by dumping Coxwell and replacing him with a fictional female character. The resulting rewrite of history makes no sense at all and reduces what might have been an interesting story to rubbish. What we're left with is a bowdlerized historical event rendered in CGI to the max. Eddie Redmayne plays the real-life James Glaisher while Felicity Jones plays the fictional Amelia Rennes. The Victoran-Era story that we're left with is preposterous.

To add insult to injury, Jones' character is one of the most annoying females I've seen in a film in a long time ... well since BOOKSMART. Totally out of character for the Victorian Era, this shrieking harpy is loud and pushy and rude. Redmayne pretty much walks through his part. His parents, played by Tom Courtenay and Anne Reid, are way too old for their roles.

Another gripe is the racial parade of Blacks and Asians all done up in the Victorian finery. So there's another PC push that is not historically accurate, plus Redmayne's friend/assistant is Indian. Victorian England was not that culturally fluid.

Probably 90% of the film is dominated by CGI and green screen technologies that always seem to have that flat, unnatural look. And isn't it amazing how Jones can hang on to icy, frozen ropes and dangle in mid air. Total bosh!

The movie is quite enjoyable as a fairy tale. It's supposed to be based on a true story, but to be politically correct Amazon has rewritten history and turned one of the two main characters to a women. It was two men, not a man and women. There is no need to rewrite history. I'd be annoyed if they make a movie about Amelia Earhart and turned her into a man. It's history. Just do the history.

I'd rated this a 9 if they hadn't lied by saying this is based on true events.

The acting is pretty good and the story line is good and it's fairly clean.