Warbirds (2008)
"The final battle has begun..."
Plot
In the final days of World War II, a band of WASPs (Women's Air Service Corps) are hired to deliver a top secret weapon to an American airbase in the Pacific. During the flight, a storm forces them down onto a small island where they are confronted by a small band of Japanese soldiers who have been desperately trying to survive the onslaught of attacks by giant Pterodons, flying prehistoric monsters. Now the Americans will share the same fate unless they can get off the island in time.
My perverse enjoyment of watching the Sci-Fi Channel churn out feeble flick after feeble flick shows no let up but after watching, or should I say enduring, Warbirds, I feel that my time of self-sacrifice is coming to an end. OK I'll admit that the plot is rubbish but wait a minute - giant Pterodons are in it for crying out loud! What's not to get excited about? See this is my problem - I can't resist the lure of monsters no matter what form they come in. And 90% of the time I end up bitterly disappointed with the end product. I knew this was going to suck but it didn't stop me from watching. Warbirds is a shocking mess from the start to the finish. Its eighty-five minutes of grinding dialogue and cringe-worthy special effects. Having your eyes pecked out by crows would be more entertaining than sitting through this again.
Warbirds gets some immediate freshness with the period setting, giving the generic Sy Fy something of a different feel than usual but this quickly wears away to reveal the usual pitfalls. No offence to the female cast but I think the biggest problem with this film is that the main characters are all feisty American pilots (who were only civilian in real life and weren't part of the military) and there is inevitable plot armour that they come with. You know they're not going to get battered around by the Pterodons in the same way as the males in the cast are ripped apart. They spend most of the film with their hair perfectly styled and their make-up and lipstick pretty much untouched. The lead female character spends the entire film arguing with her superiors and her underlings. How did this woman ever get into a command position with an attitude like that? She also has the really uncanny habit of saving "over" more times than anyone else in the history of military combat. It also grinds on me when her crew call her 'skip' or 'skipper'. It just seems so forced as if the writer was desperately trying to convince us that these women are in the armed forces by overcompensating with the jargon. Turn it into a drinking game and take a shot whenever 'skip' or 'over' is said and you won't be awake by the second half.
Not content with the over-use of famous military language, the writer also serves us up some clichéd Japanese soldiers who are simply there to bleat about honour and sacrifice. The few American soldiers hanging around the island are purely there as fodder for the Pterodons too - after all we can't start sacrificing the women too early can we? If it hadn't already been doing it, Warbirds really ticks into clockwork when it arrives on the island and has the Pterodons attack just as the two human enemies are confronting each other. From that moment onward, suspend your disbelief, drink plenty of caffeine and get some cotton wool ready for your ears because Warbirds will test you to your limits of endurance. It's truly woeful.
The special effects are terrible. Watching the characters sit in cockpits against a green screen makes you feel like you're a spectator at an arcade staring at someone in a flight sim. The shots of the CG planes flying through CG storm clouds feel like they're out of a mid-90s video game FMV cut-scene and do nothing to convince viewers that you're watching something real. The Pterodons come off a little better, despite looking like turtles with wings rather than the birds they were. Dogfighting sequences are brief CG messes; not very intense or exciting and which defy the laws of physics and gravity on many occasions. At least the rare moments when the Pterodons attack people on the ground look respectable enough. But there are just not enough of them. When the Americans reach the island, the remains of the Japanese base makes it look like there was an all-out massacre but alas the Pterodons must have been too full because they don't seem interested in anybody else for most of the film outside of a few expendable extras
Sy Fy regular Brian Krause looks like he'd rather be anywhere else than here but has to keep professional for the sake of the film because everyone else around him is dreadful. Jamie Elle Mann stars as the infamous 'skipper' and wow, she's terrible. I don't know how much to blame the script or her performance but wow. Not once throughout the entire course of the film does she act like she's in the military and follow orders but she questions everything, bickers with everyone and blatantly takes the opposite stance to whatever has just been said to her. The main character is meant to be the anchor for the film both for the other characters to bounce off and for the audience to empathise and sympathise with. She anchors the film alright; just stops it dead in its tracks from ever attempting to soar.
Final Verdict
Warbirds is more of the same old, same old from The Sci-Fi Channel, only this time with some horrendous characters to base the film around to really add insult to injury. I honestly don't expect any better from them now and neither should you. They have good ideas but they just don't throw enough money or talented people at them to make them worthwhile. Over.
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Warbirds Director(s): Kevin Gendreau Writer(s): Kevin Gendreau (screenplay & story), Christian McIntire (story), John Terlesky (story), Scott Wheeler (story) Actor(s): Jamie Elle Mann, Stephanie Honoré, Shauna Rappold, Brian Krause, Tohoru Masamune, Lucy Faust, David Jensen Duration: 85 mins |  |
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