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Mary Pols, Time: WEAK "Such rich history, such poor execution.... Lucas has once again -- he does this just every time he releases anything new -- threatened to retire from making big movies. Why can't he just retire from making bad movies?" (Read the full review...) 1,072 words, 01/20/12 Jake Coyle, Associated Press: MODERATE (cg) "...the famed Tuskegee Airmen get the John Wayne-style heroic rendering they very much deserve, but in a hackneyed and weirdly context-less story that does them a disservice.... reduces a historical story of deep cultural significance to merely a flyboy flick." (Read the full review...) 732 words, 01/19/12 Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: GOOD (cg) "...in the air, 'Red Tails' is a compelling sky-war pageant of a movie. On the ground, it's a far shakier experience: dutiful and prosaic, with thinly scripted episodes that don't add up to a satisfying story." (Read the full review...) 310 words, 01/20/12 Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: MODERATE (cg) "It's a hell of a tale, a 'Star Wars' based in historical fact. But executive producer Lucas, in tandem with director Anthony Hemineway ('The Wire,' 'Treme'), half botches the job.... a missed opportunity." (Read the full review...) 164 words, 01/27/12 Claudia Puig, USA Today: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "...paced at just the right pitch to maintain excitement without becoming frenetic. But it's only half of a good movie. As soon as those dogfighting planes land, the story trips up by skimming the surface of history." (Read the full review...) 342 words, 01/20/12 Roger Ebert, RogerEbert.com: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "...entertaining.... The scenes of aerial combat are skillfully done and exciting. It makes the point that the airmen were skilled and courageous, and played a historic role in the eventual integration of our armed services." (Read the full review...) 855 words, 01/20/12 Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: WEAK (cg) "There's absolutely zero dramatic edge in the non-flying scenes. The bantering dialogue starts off as a sub-sub-sub-level pastiche of 'Only Angels Have Wings' and gets staler from there." (Read the full review...) 677 words, 01/19/12 James Berardinelli, Reel Views: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "Sure, the aerial battles are technically adept and occasionally exhilarating, but it's almost painful to sit through some of the 'drama' that occurs on the ground." (Read the full review...) 919 words, 01/20/12
Stephen Holden, New York Times: FAIR "...a mildly entertaining classroom instructional about the Tuskegee Airmen.... The mostly happy ending is as satisfying as a snack of milk and cookies after a ninth grade softball game." (Read the full review...) 657 words, 01/20/12 Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: WEAK (cg) "...while its cast is first-rate and its flying sequences sharp, the movie is as glazed and wide-eyed as a 70-year-old comic book.... all the pilot chatter is annoying." (Read the full review...) 323 words, 01/20/12 Michael Phillips, Los Angeles Times/Chicago Tribune: MODERATE "...squanders a great subject, reducing the real-life struggles and fierce heroics of the Tuskegee Airmen to rickety cliche.... The actors do all they can. But Lucas and company did not get the script right with this one..." (Read the full review...) 612 words, 01/20/12 Lou Lumenick, New York Post: VERY GOOD (cg) "...inspiring, rousing... a well-acted, well-directed (by TV veteran Anthony Hemingway) popcorn movie with great aerial battles and solid dramatic scenes that hold your attention for two good hours." (Read the full review...) 639 words, 01/20/12 Rafer Guzman, New York Newsday: WEAK (cg) "...has genuine admiration for the sacrifices and achievements made by the Tuskegee Airmen, but they deserve a better commemoration than this." (Read the full review...) 301 words, 01/20/12 Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine: WEAK "...feels so devoid of life or edge, eager to please and fearful of offense.... It's history as a boy's adventure, which makes it doubly strange that Lucas would mess this up." (Read the full review...) 758 words, 01/19/12 Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "...entertaining.... The scenes of aerial combat are skillfully done and exciting. It makes the point that the airmen were skilled and courageous, and played a historic role in the eventual integration of our armed services." (Read the full review...) 855 words, 01/20/12 Mark Holcomb, Village Voice/LA Weekly: GOOD (NOT GREAT) "...indulges every creaky combat-flick trope imaginable. Which isn't to say 'Red Tails' is anything less than invigorating fun in its first half, before the dogfights and breakneck banter of its primarily black cast boil over." (Read the full review...) 258 words, 01/25/12 Peter Howell, Toronto Star: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "...old-fashioned entertainment, to be sure, and sometimes melodramatic to the film's detriment. But when 'Red Tails' literally flies, as it often does, it soars. There are more grand aerial battles here than in any of Lucas's space operas." (Read the full review...) 701 words, 01/20/12 James Adams, Toronto Globe & Mail: WEAK (cg) "...a lousy film." (Read the full review...) 657 words, 01/20/12 Norman Wilner, Toronto Now: POOR (cg) "...the characters, dialogue and emotional weight barely exist." (Read the full review...) 470 words, 01/26/12
Mark Jenkins, Washington Post: WEAK (cg) "...could have been made during the same decade the airmen helped beat Hitler.... The war-movie cliches are as abundant as the antiaircraft fire, and the dialogue as wooden as a balsa glider." (Read the full review...) 422 words, 01/20/12 Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "...sets out to honor these heroes, and does so - but in ways that reduce their achievements to the stuff of cartoons." (Read the full review...) 594 words, 01/20/12 Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star-Tribune: MODERATE (cg) "...derivative of other World War II movies and entirely mechanical in its appeal.... it honors those exceptional fliers but denies viewers a challenging portrait of our own history.... It is a timid film about brave men." (Read the full review...) 473 words, 01/20/12 Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic: VERY GOOD (cg) "You want a hard-drinking leader? Check. A reckless daredevil? Present. A comic wise guy? Bingo. Heck, there's even a wet-behind-the-ears kid who everyone affectionately calls Junior." (Read the full review...) 299 words, 01/20/12 Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: MODERATE (cg) "...has character but no characters. Understandably, the filmmakers didn't want to make 'Top Gunz'... 'Red Tails' has its moments. They've just gone too far in the other direction. The movie is so desperate to be palatable, to appeal to everybody that it doesn't taste like anything." (Read the full review...) 882 words, 01/20/12 Stephen Whitty, New Jersey Star-Ledger: MODERATE (cg) "...instead of pride or anger or resolve, all it left me feeling was a little bit of regret that I hadn't been home, watching 'Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo' instead." (Read the full review...) 544 words, 01/20/12 Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle: POOR (cg) "The characters, all of them equipped with the usual beefs and foibles, might have been snipped from a catalog. And the dialogue: bad." (Read the full review...) 399 words, 01/20/12 Tish Wells, Seattle Times: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "Despite stunning aerial scenes and good intentions, the George Lucas-produced 'Red Tails' is grounded by clumsy dialogue, a meandering plot and the occasional jarring anachronism." (Read the full review...) 369 words, 01/20/12 Shawn Levy, Portland Oregonian: GOOD (cg) "Kudos to the [film]makers for paying homage to a remarkable group of men and their genuinely heroic deeds... a hat-tip as well for the idea that the best way to tell the story was the old-fashioned way. But would that the film's old-school aura felt knowingly retro rather than dutifully rote." (Read the full review...) 464 words, 01/20/12 Kevin Johnson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: VERY GOOD (cg) "Overreaching fits of melodrama, occasionally stilted dialogue, and performances by Gooding Jr. and Howard that are mostly a series of serious faces can't keep the shiny 'Red Tails' from taking flight." (Read the full review...) 350 words, 01/20/12 Steve Persall, Tampa Bay Times: VERY GOOD (cg) "George Lucas apparently gave director Anthony Hemingway the keys to his CGI kingdom, creating marvelously designed in-flight action and a sappy, snappy salute to the Tuskegee Airmen." (Read the full review...) 448 words, 01/21/12 Tom Long, Detroit News: FAIR (cg) "Saying the movie was supposed to turn out like this doesn't make it any better. The Tuskegee Airmen were serious heroes, on a number of levels. They deserve a serious movie. 'Red Tails' is not that movie." (Read the full review...) 538 words, 01/20/12
Mark Holcomb, Village Voice/LA Weekly: GOOD (NOT GREAT) "...indulges every creaky combat-flick trope imaginable. Which isn't to say 'Red Tails' is anything less than invigorating fun in its first half, before the dogfights and breakneck banter of its primarily black cast boil over." (Read the full review...) 258 words, 01/25/12 Katey Rich, Cinema Blend: MODERATE (cg) "...hard not to root for, but impossible to love all the same. It's bursting with promising young talent on the screen, but behind the camera Hemingway and Lucas are incapable of eking out a story from what ought to be fascinating and revelatory history." (Read the full review...) 646 words, 01/20/12 Betsy Sherman, Boston Phoenix: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "Expect broad strokes rather than nuance.... Still, director Anthony Hemingway and his cast make us care about the team and its members." (Read the full review...) 147 words, 01/26/12 Keith Phipps, AV Club: FAIR (cg) "John Ridley and Aaron McGruder fill their surprisingly flavorless script with predictable developments, characters who would be interchangeable but for a single defining trait, and dialogue that sounds a few drafts away from being done." (Read the full review...) 542 words, 01/19/12 Stephanie Zacharek, Movieline: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "...squanders the considerable gifts of its cast. In the end 'Red Tails' is mostly about the coolness of flying. Its heart is in the clouds, instead of with the men at the controls." (Read the full review...) 1,106 words, 01/19/12 Jesse Cataldo, Slant: MODERATE (cg) "...as earnest as you might expect, stocked with egregious, often patently unnecessary digital effects, hokey humor, and aw-shucks patriotism, an underdog story played out against vaguely menacing dark forces." (Read the full review...) 720 words, 01/20/12 Norman Wilner, Toronto Now: POOR (cg) "...the characters, dialogue and emotional weight barely exist." (Read the full review...) 470 words, 01/26/12
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: WEAK "...not a great movie, but a deeply misconceived one... tells the story with a comic-book sensibility -- 'Die, you foolish African!' snarls a Messerschmitt pilot -- and a videogame approach to the visual effects." (Read the full review...) 295 words, 01/20/12 Stephen Holden, New York Times: FAIR "...a mildly entertaining classroom instructional about the Tuskegee Airmen.... The mostly happy ending is as satisfying as a snack of milk and cookies after a ninth grade softball game." (Read the full review...) 657 words, 01/20/12 Michael Phillips, Los Angeles Times: MODERATE "...squanders a great subject, reducing the real-life struggles and fierce heroics of the Tuskegee Airmen to rickety cliche.... The actors do all they can. But Lucas and company did not get the script right with this one..." (Read the full review...) 612 words, 01/20/12 Forrest Wickman, Slate: FAIR "...condescends to its audience and stretchs the boundaries of belief.... David Oyelowo fares well as the charismatic hot shot, while Nate Parker is as solid as a character made of cardboard can be." (Read the full review...) 928 words, 01/19/12
Peter Debruge, Daily Variety: FAIR "Apart from the occasional thrill provided by CG-enhanced aerial dogfights, this stuffy history lesson about the groundbreaking African-American fighter pilot division never quite takes off, weighed down by wooden characters and leaden screenwriting." (Read the full review...) 1,003 words, 01/18/12 Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: FAIR "...every character here is so squeaky clean, and the prejudice as depicted is so toothless and easily overcome, that the film feels like a gingerly fantasy version of what, in real life, was an exceptional example of resilient trail-blazing.... you just know there's so much more to this story." (Read the full review...) 1,104 words, 01/18/12 Michael Phillips, Los Angeles Times: MODERATE "...squanders a great subject, reducing the real-life struggles and fierce heroics of the Tuskegee Airmen to rickety cliche.... The actors do all they can. But Lucas and company did not get the script right with this one..." (Read the full review...) 612 words, 01/20/12 Stephen Holden, New York Times: FAIR "...a mildly entertaining classroom instructional about the Tuskegee Airmen.... The mostly happy ending is as satisfying as a snack of milk and cookies after a ninth grade softball game." (Read the full review...) 657 words, 01/20/12 Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: WEAK "...not a great movie, but a deeply misconceived one... tells the story with a comic-book sensibility -- 'Die, you foolish African!' snarls a Messerschmitt pilot -- and a videogame approach to the visual effects." (Read the full review...) 295 words, 01/20/12
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