Amelia Earhart - L'ultimo viaggio

This film is just a recycling of the mountain of myth that has surrounded Amelia Earhart's disappearance: she was on a spying mission (although she didn't know it, her husband was approached to pump her for information about Japanese activity in the Pacific); she and her navigator Fred Noonan disliked each other; Noonan was an unreliable alcoholic; she was panicky and low on fuel towards the end of the flight and ended it by deliberately ditching her aircraft.

Sorry, dear viewer. There is no evidence at all that Earhart was a spy, or that the Japanese were up to no good in the South Pacific four years before WWII. She and Noonan liked and respected each other. Noonan was probably the foremost aerial navigator in the world at that time (he pioneered Pan-Am's China Clipper route across the Pacific) and a consummate professional. The last messages heard from the aircraft indicate that Earhart was still in control of herself, following her contingency plan. At this time she would have had enough fuel for another four hours flying time.

I'm afraid this film is a conspiracy-theorist's fantasy extravaganza.

This movie was decent for a TV Movie, it was well directed and fairly well casted (Although the casting of Dern as Putnam could have been better), and handled the era quite nicely.

I liked how it explored the angle of Amelia gathering information about Japanese movements - if you consider the condition the country was in at the time of the real Earhart flight, you'd understand that it very well could not be a myth. It included Noonans alcohol problem (A little known, yet on the record fact) as well as Amelias stubbornness to carry extra equipment.

One thing I did not like about this movie is the "afterwards" angle. It ended with them raising their altitude in some final acceptance scene into the sunset - Amelia was stubborn, she wouldn't have accepted the fact that she may very well be DEAD in an hour that easily.

Also, I think it would have been prudent to tell the viewers that not only would a Lockeed C-35 Electra (The plane she was flying) float with empty fuel tanks, but also that there were several islands in the vicinity of Amelias last transmissions... the (real) main theory is that she crashed on one of these islands and was later executed by pacific Japanese troops... the plane was then burned (Almost confirmed by pieces of a C-35 found on one of the islands) Overall it was an amusing movie. I thought it was overacted in some parts, and the drama was stereotypical and drawn out, but it was worth the two hours to watch it.

The film is interesting, with a good Dern and a good Hauer, but Keaton is badly miscast. Her hectic, slightly quirky style doesn't fit the role of this woman at all. And I can't imagine Keaton riding a bicycle without help, let alone flying an airplane; she looks as out of place in that cockpit as Ernest Borgnine in a bedroom putting ice-cubes on Kim Basinger's stomach. It was obvious that the PC 90s would add a feminist touch to this woman, whether she really was a hard bitch or not. They just forgot to mention the fact that she dumped her husband (and kids, I think) and some other less heroic details. The way they make Earhart scream and bitch all the time seems a little exaggerated, but there is no question that this must have been a woman with the ego of a Warren Beatty. The aerial shots are nice.

Made-for-TV movie about Amelia Earhart that paints an unflattering picture of the famed aviatrix. It stars Diane Keaton and, as another reviewer before me noted, she is not the right fit for this role. It's basically Diane Keaton being Diane Keaton (or Annie Hall). The controversy with this version of Earhart's story is how much she is portrayed as an incompetent and petulant woman who is barely able to get the plane off the ground. Her personal life is not spared either, as her relationship with her husband (Bruce Dern) is portrayed as a passionless business arrangement. I appreciate they didn't romanticize Amelia too much but maybe they went a bit too far in the other direction. The Amelia shown here had no business piloting an airplane.

It's a television movie so it was obviously never going to be dynamite, but it kept my interest throughout so I can't complain too much. You don't see much on TV today that would even go half as far as this in attempting to match the period clothing and cars, etc., let alone use an actual plane. It would be all CGI today and since it's made-for-TV, it would be terrible CGI. I should point out that, despite the attempts at getting the period setting right, they aren't entirely successful there. Also there are a few instances where they use words and phrases that I don't believe were common in the 1930s. Still, it's a decent time-passer despite its many flaws. I think most people will at least find it watchable, although Earhart buffs might be infuriated by it at times. I enjoyed it more than that terrible movie with Hillary Swank, that's for sure.

This movie despite its shortcomings got me started researching the life of Fred Noonan nearly ten years ago. Rutger Hauer looks nothing like Fred who was tall and thin yet the movie although stereotyped is fairly accurate. It is true that Fred did indeed have a drinking problem for which he was fired but evidence shows that much of this was due to the immense strain he was under rather than a wilful character defect.It could be said that he was the worlds first commercial aerial navigator. He was nothing short of brilliant. He is shown as a likable character and this was so in real life. The video cover could have done without the image of him in a grimy shirt,cigarette in mouth, poring over a chart with a bottle of booze. Untrue. He was sartorial dresser who worried about the cleanliness of his clothes and the cigarette ash would have burned a hole in his precious chart.

One scene shows him laying back in the plane reading a magazine. For years I thought 'No way!' until recently I found out that he is reputed to have done just that in the Clipper planes which he navigated on their pioneering flights across the Pacific.Only it was thrillers rather than holiday brochures! This movie is well worth seeing. Its not brilliant art but is more factual than much of the stuff that is written about and discussed in Earhart circles. For those into the disappearance, Elgen Long's book, is in my opinion the best and most informative. But there IS also considerable 'evidence' for the theory that they may have been captured by the Japanese. In addition its not impossible that they might have perished on Niku.

Jackie Ferrari