Les Chevaliers du ciel

The storyline was nice, had a few little twists and You don't neccesarly find out the whole plot within the first few minutes. The air scenes are very, very good, probably within the best of all movies that feature some air combat.

As the movie often gets compared to Top Gun: well, if You found Top Gun a bit plotless, a bit boring, a bit too much romance and the fighting very, very lame, then You'll definitely enjoy this movie. Sky fighters is about 70% air combat, 25% story and 5% romance. I dimly remember the soundtrack was real good too.

It would probably be a mistake to bring along Your girlfriend.

I just saw this movie and I really enjoyed it ! I don't remember exactly the plot of Top Gun (maybe because there wasn't one ;-) ) but I'm sure that this movie is much better than Top Gun. (And no, I'm not saying that because I'm European !) Why ? First because it has an outstanding cinematography : the landscapes are various (the Alps, the sea, the desert and even Paris) and beautifully caught by the camera : they never shot anything if there wasn't the kind of clouds they wanted for example !

The best aspect of this movie is without any doubt the formidable camera angles. In Top Gun they mostly used cameras on the ground and special effects for the cockpit scenes. In this movie everything is shot from five cameras in a modified pod on a jet fighter and the result is absolutely breathtaking ! The technique they used to shot the actors in the cockpit is not the same as the Tony Scott film : in Top Gun it's the camera that rotates around the actor, in this movie the actors and the camera were on some kind of elevator with an articulated arm that can rotates in all directions, so that they were upside down and shaken like in a simulator ! The result is way more convincing and believable after the blue screen is replaced with the superb images.

The plot is also quite good, although it's still an action movie ! There's a lot of humor and the cast delivers a good performance... And finally, the soundtrack is always well chosen : The ambient, mood music beautifully reinforces the feeling of lightness and calm when the planes are flying high in the clouds, and on the other hand the rock music matches perfectly with the thrilling dogfight scenes ! What else do you ask to that kind of movie ? For me the only problem is the end, (wich I will not disclose here) : in my opinion it's too abrupt, I was expecting something bigger and longer... But it's still a good one.

Overall, a good movie for everyone : 8 out of 10 !

Year 2005/2006. What is this? Rubbing my eyes, checking the cover of DVD - Chevaliers du ciel, Les - yes, it is a french movie. Like so many Hollywood cookings, much aerial stunts, breath-taking sky- punctures through clouds and blue pilots heaven. Seen so many fighter-movies, but this is a bullseye. Not for a story - many weak characters, but the real bold ones, the planes themselves.

Mirage was a good choice. Delta-wings gives extra speed and maneuverable feelings with most important fact that those planes were real ones. Real pilots and real surroundings. Only scene over Paris was partly manipulated.

Goodbye Top Gun and so many ridiculous computer aided movies. I won't search for goofs, it's not relevant.

Female-must-frame-in-the-film act was filled with nice-faced Alice Taglioni and the others, but the they did not have the charm of Mme Géraldine Pailhas, who has those faces to hold in memory.

French icon Benoît Magimel got more to keep going on.

My vote is mostly for authentic aviation.

A French aerial-action flick packed with fast jets, quick tempered pilots and the usual array of love-interests. Many have compared 'Les Chevaliers du ciel' to the 1986 US box office blockbuster, Top Gun. Film fans bang on about 'this lax French copy' - but it's not a copy, it's a completely different film altogether. Different plot and different characters. It just happens to feature the French Air Force, whereas Top Gun was based on the US Navy.

In my honest opinion, 'Les Chevs' (it's international title being Sky Fighters), is a very plausible film. If you ignore the weak female characters and their individual inter-woven story-lines, then the 97 minute film motors along quite happily. Then you discover that the director is one Gérard Pirès, the man responsible for delivering 'Riders' and 'Double Zero'. For anyone who saw either of these stable-mates may recall British actor Bruce Payne's fingernail scraping American accent in 'Riders' and then there was the farcical 'Double Zero' - a French spy comedy film. It was obvious that a large slice of the combined budgets went towards lunch.

'Les Chevaliers du ciel' has a fairly reasonable story: a new French fighter jet, the Mirage 2000 is hijacked on the tarmac at the Farnborough Airshow in the UK. Two French fighter jets are sent to intercept the stolen aircraft as it flies towards the French coast. Our two heros are flying the interceptors, Benoît Magimel as Capt Antoine "Walk'n" Marchelli and his sidekick, Capt Sébastien "Fahrenheit" Vallois played by Clovis Cornillac. They end up in a multitude of trouble but go on to save the day when a naughty little inter-governmental plot is revealed.

Such is the advancement in filming technology and special effects in the 19 years since Top Gun was made, this particular flick contains some very impressive aerial sequences. What many fail to realise is that the flying sequences in Top Gun were mainly filmed from the ground, whereas in 'Les Chevs', it was mostly airborne. With 21st Century kit like the Spacecam and the Vectorvision Jet Camera, what you see is what actually happened. By strapping this new technology to the underbelly of another fighter jet, the aerial sequences have you in the Martin Baker seat of ejection happiness. A pod containing 4 cameras captured the forward, rear and side-to-side action, making for a fascinating insight into the sheer joy of punching your way through a cloud bank.

The film, naturally, has to have a love interest - or 3 - as in this case. Géraldine Pailhas plays Maelle Coste, the French Prime Minister's defence adviser, Alice Taglioni plays fellow pilot Lt Estelle 'Pitbull' Kass and Rey Reyes as "Stardust", an American Air Force pilot on an exchange programme. I must say that Ms Reyes took a leaf out of 'Riders' by delivering a shockingly bad US accent and also managed to corner the market in pouting and posing. A character somewhat far fetched and unbelievable.

The inter-weaving sub plots keep you thinking and Fiona Curzon, a Paris-based English actress, makes an appearance as a certain Mrs Redgrave, a British arms dealer from Gibraltar. Sadly, she too seems to have been struck down with a case of the 'awful accents'.

Overall, 'Les Chevs' seems to have lifted Gérard Pirès out of his funk and is well worth a viewing. So brush up on your French, return the seatback to the upright position and prepare for the rush of the afterburners.

Admitedly this film is somewhat lacking in film techniques and complexity, but the reason for this is not that it is a bad film but rather a film with a different aim. With so many films coming out every year it is unavoidable that they be judged and compared, but this constant rating of films has created a certain stereotype of qualities which a film should have to be good. This kind of stereotyped rating, although often setting a good standard for comparison, works against films such as Sky Fighters. This is because in my opinion Sky Fighters has a different goal to most movies, rather than using the common methods to deliver a complex story line, Sky Fighters is a tribute to fighter pilots. It does an excellent job of portraying the complexity and importance of the role of a fighter pilot, as well as demonstrating the qualities a pilot must posses. Sky Fighters uses all real flying and aerobatics footage to achieve a very real demonstration, from the technical aspect, of what it means to be a fighter pilot. This film is very appropriate for anyone interested in fighters, aerobatics and the people behind them. I do not recommend it for audiences looking for a sophisticated or complex storyline.