Hindenburg : Le géant des airs

Effects are good, and actors do what they can, the director should consider selling shoes, no idea about how people behave naturally, boring facial scenes stretched to infinity... The script is not even worth the title. What a shame.

The Hindenburg disaster had interested me for years and there have been a number of good documentary features as well as a quite decent Hollywood movie. Now, RTL Germany wanted to impress its viewers with a 10 Million Euro spectacle of the tragic disaster - mixed with a lot of drama, suspense and love of course. What sounds quite intriguing at first quickly unfolds to a beginners guide on how to waste 10 Million Euros.

In the first minute of the film I was amazed, that the opening titles already contained the best images of the Zeppelin SFX Explosion - a thing which I would have saved for the very last. Then, the viewer has to endure annoying E-Guitar music for the first few scenes. This film is supposed to be set in 1937 so the musical choice is a definite let-down right from the start and continues to bother me as a viewer in repetitive manner.

The cast of the US-German production mainly consists of well-known German actors and internationally renowned names like Greta Scacchi, Stacy Keach and Lauren Lee Smith. Despite a good line-up of actors, the characters can only be described as boring and stereotypical which hints to a poor and uninspired script.

Although the plot is supposedly built around the Hindenburg disaster, the viewer is dragged for 3 long hours through an almost ridiculous storyline with a few twists and turns that eventually lead up to the films climax. The initial idea behind the script is good and would have made quite a nice 2 hour feature film - but not more.

My conclusion after having seen the entire film is simple: Too much dramatization, weak characters, a bad musical score but still nice Special and Visual effects. Nevertheless, effects don't necessarily make a good movie and giving a tragedy like the Hindenburg explosion the modern day "Disaster-Movie-Treatment" the way it was done here can only be considered as shameless and embarrassing.

I did not understand what the black guy was doing in this movie. just out of place.

I enjoyed this version better than the 1975 Hollywood production simply because it wasn't filled with anti-German ideas. Was obvious that the 1975 movie wasn't made to educate people on the Hindenburg or to simply entertain, but to add more and more "instruction" on the horrors of National Socialist Germany. I also enjoyed the modern music and the hint of a love story without all the typical heavy panting love scenes. Yes, some of the acting was wooden but the effects were much more believable than the 1975 version. I also enjoyed the gliding scene at the beginning of the movie as this was a popular activity in 1930's Germany. All in all I found this was a worthwhile distraction from a boring evening without the usual Hollywood political BS that usually accompanies these types of movies.

This two part TV-movie was part of a three movie box set of not so well known war movies that we bought for my son as a Christmas present. So far we have watched two of them and they have both been worthwhile to watch.

Unfortunately we found out that this one was one of those cheap DVD's that some arrogant French publisher had dumped on a DVD dubbed to French only. No original language and not even subtitles. That's just so crappy but unfortunately this used to be quite common with DVD's in France and there was no way of seeing it without opening the box set.

Anyway, the movie itself is actually not bad. It spans three hours split into two one and a half hour episodes. The actual story is pure fiction loosely based on the bomb conspiracy theories. It is a fairly okay thriller/drama story and, despite knowing that the zeppelin is going to blow up, I took enough interest to follow the characters throughout the movie.

It was fun to see Stacy Keach again as well. I always liked watching Mike Hammer when I was younger.

The visual effects are not bad. Some people are probably going to complain about historical accuracy. The available space for the passengers, especially their sleeping compartments, seems to have been "enlarged" somewhat for the benefit of the visual impression but that doesn't really bother me that much. It's a fiction movie based on the Hindenburg disaster, not a historical documentary after all.

The one thing that bothered me, apart from the French only DVD version, was the way too modern music in the movie. It's supposed to be a 1937 setting so that modern e-guitar stuff was simply disturbing. Very poor choice indeed.