Angel of the Skies

I don't want to flame South African cinema. I've enjoyed several releases from there. I also love a good World War II flying movie. This one lost credibility with me.

I can forgive the CGI flight scenes that look like they came out of a game. Original planes from that period are far too rare and valuable to use to make a movie and special effects don't make a movie. The story makes the movie. Unfortunately the story is what let me down.

There is a phenomena called "suspension of disbelief" in a movie. Unfortunately they literally shot suspension of disbelief quite early. The cliché evil SS officer just blew it away. His actions were utterly illogical. His men didn't point out how his actions directly worked against the Third Reich winning the war.

The evil SS officer was the worst but it wasn't the only logical failure. Over and over I kept thinking "Why would they do that" and "What a wasted opportunity." I sincerely wish them better luck next time.

Cardboard aircraft that do not even look real, poor acting and locations that are obviously not European. Certainly can tell it is a low budget film with no real dialogue, a total waste of viewing time!

Not sure where to start with this one - it is obvious that the writer/director wanted to honour the South African volunteers who served, very capably in the RAF during the WWII. Unfortunately this load of rubbish does them no honour at all.

The research, if indeed there actually was any, is slapdash in the extreme (a medic carrying a rifle? the "hero" in tropical brown in place of RAF blue? etc. etc.). The uniforms and background ideas (RAF daylight bombing???) are just ridiculous and even the ranks are incorrect (how hard is it to get those right?). To list all of the obvious errors would probably take more text than the full wooden script.

I could go on about this but all could have been tolerable if the acting had been even competent but, to be honest, I have seen better at the local 'AmDram'. There is little attempt, so it appears, to actually do more than "read the lines" from a script that shows zero knowledge of WWII or the RAF with a crew that purports to be veteran but is so undisciplined that most wouldn't have managed more than a couple of months without a court martial.

Sadly I cannot see any saving grace in this movie - it really is a case of can I have the two hours of my life back please?

Don't waste your time.

Just watched this on the TV. Interesting storyline let down by poor research and immature psychological insight, silly stereotyping and stilted dialogue script.

Initially I thought the acting a bit wooden. Slowly each of the main characters idiosyncrasies grew on me until they became almost believable characters and worthy of the "Actor" job-description. The exceptions were the girlfriend of the main protagonist and a truly SSified SS officer. She; really quite irrelevant to the story. He; relevant but preposterous. Why, in the 21st Century, did the director decide to have a German SS officer who came from the same mould Hollywood production lines fabricated in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's...? The man who played "SS offizer" wasn't even any good at acting a simple 2D stereotype.

Bomber flight formations were good even if the CGI was a bit naff, though one can't be too picky as the producers certainly wouldn't have had a Spielberg or Cameron budget (and they can create disastrously bad films costing tens to hundreds of millions., ie., , Titanic, Avatar, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, Jurassic Park series).

The plot would have been better served with less time in the air and more time on enemy occupied ground as terrorfliegers cautiously avoiding the wrath of a heavily bombed people and SS Panzer division.

The girlfriend (story) could easily have been ditched with no loss, and the cardboard cutout SS officer spun into a more credible human being. Which, frankly, is what I'd hoped the film would be like when I read the TV schedule description.

If you've quite finished with your special effects............. I'd like my Commodore64 back