Mixed or average reviews - based on 22 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 22
  2. Negative: 4 out of 22
  1. 70
  2. As imaginatively as some of them are staged, the action scenes are never authentically gripping. This seems to be the hidden handicap of our new digital filmmaking era in which all big action sequences are generated in the computer and look vaguely like cartoons.
  3. 63
  4. Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    The movie's straightforward and ingratiating, and as pretty-boy history lessons go, it's a lot less obnoxious than "Pearl Harbor."
  5. Reviewed by: Glenn Kenny
    Part of what makes these kind of war movies such cinematic comfort food (aside from the moral certainty they strive to convey) is their familiarity. But I wonder if said familiarity is what compels contemporary filmmakers to overstuff the material -- Flyboys is a good two hours and 20 minutes.
  7. Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    Lovingly and knowledgeably made by director Tony Bill, who got his pilot's license as a teenager, pic nonetheless has a lightweight, airbrushed feel; despite the brutal dogfights and inevitable deaths, there's little gravity or resonance.
  8. 58
    There's something almost perversely old-fashioned about Flyboys.
  10. 50
    Flyboys is so schematic and contrived, you can anticipate exactly what scene is going to come next, and who will be the next to die in combat, once you latch onto the structure of the script, which has all the inventiveness and ingenuity of a flow chart.
  12. Besides some fine dogfight sequences, it often feels threadbare, just an exercise in recycling.
  13. Reviewed by: Bill Gallo
  14. 50
  15. While the music slops and churns and the ground-level bathos rises, the aerial stuff is occasionally stirring.
  16. 50
    The aerial dogfights are thrilling, but the script seems to have been written by Snoopy.
  17. Reviewed by: Gregory Kirshling
  18. 40
    While director Bill nails the sheer spectacle of squads of SPADs dovetailing in flames into the wide blue yonder, the earthbound action (much as it was in another sputtering epic, Michael Bay's "Pearl Harbor") is strictly laissez faire.
  19. 38
    The computer-generated flying effects are the only reason to see the movie, but at some point somebody left the computer on too long, so it went ahead and spat out the script.
  20. Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
  21. 33
  22. Reviewed by: Kate Taylor
    The creators of Flyboys know no image too clichéd, no narrative convention too exhausted and no psychological motivation too pat that it can't do service.
User Score

Mixed or average reviews- based on 38 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 25
  2. Negative: 8 out of 25
  1. Nov 23, 2011
  2. TonyB.
    Aug 31, 2008
  3. GrantC.
    Jul 29, 2008