1942 – Flying Tigers
This was a good movie with some top-notch visual effects. As was the trend in the early 40s, it was another wartime action/drama. The story was about, you guessed it, the ace fighter squadron known as the Flying Tigers. So we got some pretty great air battles with the Japanese Air Force, some great bombing scenes, and the big climax of the movie, the US bombing of a Japanese supply bridge. There was a lot to see, and the story did a good job of keeping my interest.
So first, let me address the aerial battles. There were plenty of planes in the air, making the screen full of fast flying planes with some pretty impressive stunt flying. They mixed this in with some great models and fancy camera angles. There were planes that were damaged, with smoke trailing from them, and even planes on fire as they fell from the sky. There was one airplane that was completely engulfed in flames as it fell from the sky. The action was fast-paced and chaotic, and it was sometimes difficult to tell which were the Americans and which were the Japanese. But in one case it didn’t matter as we saw one plane crash into another in mid-air. Upon impact, the two fighters exploded in a massive ball of flame. Very cool!
There was another great sequence where there was a commercial airplane that had been hit with anti-aircraft weaponry and had to make a hard landing with one of its engines spewing forth smoke and flames. It had to land without using its landing gear. It hit the ground on a wet and muddy runway, and slid to a rough stop. I couldn’t tell if this was a real airplane or a model. Whichever it was, the illusion worked. That was a cool effects sequence.
The bombing of the US air base and the village it was next to was great. There were explosions everywhere, and people ducking to the ground. And in the later half of the film, some building were hit, throwing splintered wood and debris everywhere. But that climax I mentioned, where the bridge is blown was very exciting. It was clearly a model, but the detail was great. The only thing that would have made that effect better would have been a train moving on the bridge as it was destroyed. But that was a plot point. The train was missed, so our heroes had to keep going to destroy the train, which one of them does by making the ultimate sacrifice, and crashing the plane directly into it.
The only thing that caught my attention as bad, wasn’t really even bad. Every time a Japanese aircraft was shot by American bullets, they had an overused effect where the Japanese pilot would cover his face with his hands and then we could see blood pouring through his fingers. It wasn’t a bad effect. I just think they did it a few times too many.
This Best visual effects nomination was well-deserved. They clearly knew what they were doing, and it showed. They elevated the action and pacing to an exciting pitch, and it was exciting to watch. Combine that with a great script, and you’ve got a great movie that was thrilling in all the right ways.