B-17 la forteresse volante

July, 1943. US bomber squadrons are bombing Sicily in preparation for the Allies' invasion. One such bomber is the Lucky Lass, a B- 17. When her commander is killed, the co-pilot, Lt. Wally McAllister, is given command of the plane. A rookie co-pilot, 2nd Lt. Mike Schmidt, joins the crew. Schmidt immediately alienates himself by not joining in and making some very basic errors on missions. Now he must regain their trust and support...

Amateurish in just about every way. Story is quite basic, clumsy and predictable. Direction is paint-by-numbers stuff, with no attempt at engaging the audience or anything approaching grittiness. Performances are hammy at best, and generally quite cringeworthy. Even the CGI, which in 2012 should be an easy tick, feels like something from a video game, and not a very good one.

However, decent enough battle scenes though, and a reasonably powerful final few scenes, make this not a total write-off. Still not worth watching though.

With the advent of CGI, the story of the 8th Air Force in Europe during WWII is begging to be told. The visual effects in this film were very good--I just wish they had shown the B-17s over Germany instead. Over a hundred thousand young men were killed in B-17s and B-24s over the skies of the Third Reich. Spielberg needs to make this film.

"Fortress" is a great first step, and I thank the producers for doing what big-time Hollywood could not. They made a much better film than "Memphis Belle", which was so badly Hollywoodized that the story it told about a real airplane and its crew was in no way the real story.

In "Memphis Belle", six actual B-17s were used, along with large radio-controlled models. One B-17 was lost during the production.

With CGI, hundreds of 17s and 24s can fill the skies, and the look is incredibly realistic. "Fortress" is definitely worth seeing.

and the dialog is just too modern. this is a very poorly directed movie too. but the worst thing in this movie is the sound track, the music to support the movie simply carelessly and mindless broadcast its own tune that got nothing to do with the storyline and the plot. the cgi of the first air sortie at the very beginning was also poorly crafted, it looks just too fake, the b-17s in the sky were just like a kid's drawing, the air battle also look very disconnected. what bothered me most was the music during the air raid, it played and played so loud, not just blocked the dialog but also further ruined the realistic feeling of the movie itself. then the whole movie suddenly aground on the airbase, those young actors were just poor 3rd rated non-talents. their acting simply further ruined the already too bad movie. i really doubt that people would have the patience to watch along and finish it. this is a poorly produced movie that should not put into production in the first place. if i have to use one word to describe this movie, it would be: "BORING". there's no sense to sit through the whole nine yard to the end. it's a b-movie's b movie, not even worth paying $1.00 to rent the DVD.

The short and skinny here is, if you like war films (i.e. Memphis Belle (1990)) and want to kill 90 mins or so, this movie will do the trick. The writing isn't terrible...the story is acceptable...the actors are all unknowns (except Chris Owen, "The Shermanator" of American Pie fame) but manage to hold their own and deliver their lines convincingly enough. There were a few scenes where the the backgrounds were a little weak (poor green screening), but they weren't very long and weren't game-breakers. I have seen many, many B-Rated movies and this one was a surprise in that it succeeded in not being an A rated film, and at the same time, better than most B rated films. It's a diamond in the rough, but entertaining enough to not be a total waste of time.

Hi everybody:

Here's what I thought. Movies about this subject especially American films tend to go way over the top if you know what I mean. Too much sis boom bah let's go win the war all by our selves sort of thing. This wasn't like that at all and I liked that very much. The music was not good. Too bad. I liked the fact that they were in North Africa, probably Tunisia. That was nice for a change. I thought the CGI looked very good especially the German 109s. The camouflage, markings and dimensions were right on. They looked like BF 109 G10s from JG 52. So many war films don't give two cents about what enemy aircraft look like but in this film they did. I know all of this because I've been researching WWII aeroplanes for about thirty years.

Pearl Harbor was made to make big bucks and is one of the worse WWII movies ever. This little film was better.