The Aviator

In 1918, pilot Edgar Anscombe (Christopher Reeve) nearly dies in a training accident which kills his student. It's 1928. Edgar is a bitter mail plane pilot. Rebellious Tillie Hansen (Rosanna Arquette) is being sent to live with her aunt by her controlling father. She's not happy. Edgar's not happy either to have a passenger.

This was widely panned. I wanted to see what's the issue here. Early on, Rosanna Arquette is pushing too hard. She is so bratty to the point of being annoying. Then I noticed that non of the women are written well. Evelyn is super annoying and Rose is a problem in the romantic structure. Quite frankly, these men need to be alone. They are more compelling as loners. The movie needs to write out the two ladies back home. This is much better as a survival movie. While it wants to ship Edgar and Tillie in its bones, it can't and won't. It does not help that he keeps calling her Kid. Either make Tillie an actual kid or make this an actual romance. It achieves nothing by not being either. The melodrama gets to be too much. The survival against the wolf pack is plenty enough. My final take is that this is not horrible but terribly flawed.

This is a mostly pleasant old-fashioned type of film. The aerial stuff is nice and the scenery is beautiful. I enjoyed the music, too. Christopher Reeve does a fine job in the lead. Rosanna Arquette is ok but her character seems to have been written as much younger. Well, except for certain stuff that comes out later in the picture but we won't get into that. It's a perfectly watchable movie of its type. It's full of cliches but it all looks nice and mostly sounds nice. Not exactly a ringing endorsement but you could do worse than to watch this. I'd watch this on a loop for the rest of my life than watch most of the garbage Netflix puts out today.

Chris Reeves's legacy will always be Superman, but he proves here that he was a fine actor who could really nail his character. He does a great job as an introverted, bitter pilot. The other reviewer is correct that Rosanna Arquette is annoying; however, she's not at all the worst part of the movie. If anything is annoying, it's the painfully inaccurate portrayal of wolves. Look, filmmakers, wolves do not stalk people through the woods and attack them out of the blue. This is real life, not "The Howling." Other than those small complaints, though, this simple survival story is fun and engaging, and definitely worth noting for Reeves. 8/10 stars.

Watching Christopher Reeve play totally against type. After years of playing a mild mannered, hero type, He decides to play the anti-hero. The Reeves and Arquette are an unlikely pairing. At first, her character appears to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Reeves does a good job playing the irritated grownup with a spoiled brat.

This looks like a good TV movie, made for the small screen. However, the movie has some heart felt moments. And, it is worth watching, if for no other reason, to watch Reeve not play Superman. This is one of Reeve's best "non Superman" performances; if only it could have been in a better picture. But, This movie does have some pretty good moments.

Few people know that Christopher Reeve was also an aviation enthusiast who had his own Beechcraft Baron. And he transferred that enthusiasm to his screen persona, an ex WW1 pilot who, scarred by an incident, goes on to flying mail planes in the early 1920s.

Roseanne Arquette played the spoiled rich girl who becomes his first passenger.

They crash land in the Nevada mountains and the rest of the movie concerns their survival and both of their personal transformations.

If you'd like to get a good idea about the birth of commercial flying I'd recommend the movie.