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MOVIES / ON DVD / THE AVIATOR
The Aviator

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The Aviator (2004)

88%
86%
88%
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88 %
Reviews Counted: 204 Fresh: 179  Rotten:25 Average Rating: 7.8/10
 
Consensus: Highly evocative of the period, Scorcese's biopic of Howard Hughes is being hailed as another excellent film from the master. Highly evocative of the period, Scorcese's biopic of Howard Hughes is being hailed as another excellent film from the master. more
 
Runtime: 2 hrs 50 mins
Synopsis:
Martin Scorsese's THE AVIATOR is a lavish spectacle of a motion picture that harks back to Hollywood's Golden Era in telling the story of Howard Hughes, one of 20th-century America's most pioneering and influential figures. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the eccentric billionaire,... [More]
Martin Scorsese's THE AVIATOR is a lavish spectacle of a motion picture that harks back to Hollywood's Golden Era in telling the story of Howard Hughes, one of 20th-century America's most pioneering and influential figures. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the eccentric billionaire, Scorsese's biopic concentrates on Hughes's life between the 1920s and '40s, when he made striking contributions to both the film and aviation industries. At only 25 years of age, Hughes directed the most expensive film ever made up to that point, HELL'S ANGELS (1930), which Scorsese gleefully recreates here in all its sprawling, audacious glory. At the same time, he became known as an unabashed playboy, bedding the likes of Jean Harlow (singer Gwen Stefani), Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale), and Katherine Hepburn (a brilliant Cate Blanchett). In the mid-'30s, he turned his attention to the aviation industry, where he quickly became world-renowned for shattering speed and distance records. He also continued to test the limits of flight technology, building bigger, faster, and stronger aircrafts. All the while, he struggled with an obsessive-compulsive disorder that sent him into a full-fledged tailspin after a near-fatal plane crash. The film concludes with Hughes being called before the Senate in 1947 to defend himself against the nefarious Senator Owen Brewster (Alan Alda), who accused Hughes of taking money from the United States government during wartime. Stunningly photographed by Robert Richardson, Scorsese's nearly three-hour drama features an impassioned performance by DiCaprio, who is also credited as an executive producer. Although she appears in less than a third of the film, Blanchett delivers a performance that cements her status as one of the finest actresses ever to appear on the big screen. [Less]

Genre: Dramas

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale, John C. Reilly, Alan Alda

Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenwriter: John Logan
Producer: Michael Mann, Charles Evans, Graham King
Composer: Howard Shore

DVD Info

Release:

Aug 1, 2008

[DVD Details]

DVD Features:

  • Widescreen 2.40

Audio:

  • Dolby Surround 5.1 English, French

Reviews

 
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1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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06/24/06 04:14 AM
Time Out
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06/25/05 04:00 AM
Empire Magazine
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03/07/05 03:46 AM
Independent
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A little clunky, and firmly in the realm of cinematic fantasy, The Aviator is, nevertheless, a return-to-form for Scorsese.

Full Review | Comment
01/04/05 05:25 PM
Joe Utichi
FilmFocus
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The production design throughout the film is astonishing, particularly in Scorsese's ... loving recreation of the Hollywood nightclub scene, complete with bizarre-looking singers and dancing girls

Full Review | Comment
12/27/04 11:34 PM
Matthew Turner
ViewLondon
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This is conservative, well-crafted, Oscar-friendly fare; rarely bold, but extremely well-told.

Full Review | Comment
12/21/04 10:15 PM
Nev Pierce
BBC
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Scorsese uses camera angles, editing choices, playful colours, visual effects and his remarkable cast to maximum effect

Full Review | Comment
12/02/04 11:08 PM
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall
N/R

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11/01/07 03:15 AM
David Ansen
Newsweek
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Scorsese's most engaged and engaging filmmaking in a while.

Full Review | Comment
07/23/07 07:50 AM
Rob Gonsalves
eFilmCritic.com
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07/14/07 05:57 AM
Joe Lozito
Big Picture Big Sound
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All tabloid style gloss accessorized with brassy special effects, and bloated storytelling based loosely on period gossip.

Full Review | Comment
02/08/07 05:51 PM
Prairie Miller
WBAI Web Radio
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full review in Greek

Full Review | Comment
10/03/06 08:56 AM
Joseph Proimakis
Movies for the Masses
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It's almost predictable in the way it delivers the cinematic goods, yet there's no denying that it is a compelling and entertaining look at a larger-than-life individual.

Full Review | Comment
09/01/06 02:55 PM
Russ Breimeier
Christianity Today
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The Aviator feels like old-fashioned Hollywood with a bracing jolt of Scorsese's cinematic flair

Full Review | Comment
08/19/06 12:08 PM
Jay Antani
Perihelion Journal
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12/06/05 08:06 PM
Film Threat
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12/06/05 08:06 PM
Film Threat
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It's a measure of The Aviator's complexity and ambiguity that it can be read equally as a celebration of rugged, capitalist individualism and as a leftist critique of cutthroat free-market competition.

Full Review | Comment
09/26/05 03:16 AM
Nathan Rabin
Onion AV Club
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Scorsese has dreamed up an ingenious method of specifying the period — he’s printed each sequence so that it matches up with the color film process available at the time ...

Full Review | Comment
09/16/05 03:15 AM
Jeremy C. Fox
Pajiba
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A tremendous success.

Full Review | Comment
06/02/05 03:18 PM
Forrest Hartman
Reno Gazette-Journal
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The Aviator is more than entertaining and engrossing enough to keep you interested ... for at least 130 minutes or so.

Full Review | Comment
05/24/05 11:47 PM
Scott Weinberg
DVDTalk.com
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