Where to begin with this dog of a movie? We could start by pointing out that the premise of the story is wrong, namely, that bombardiers are about to become the most crucial people in the war and that with their wonderful, new, super-top-secret bombsite they will be able to hit their targets right on the nose from 20,000 feet.
Total nonsense. Even when the movie was made, nobody could have believed it. Here is a good example of wildly inaccurate bombing was right to the end of the war, from the article on precision bombing in Wikipedia: "In the summer of 1944, 47 B- 29's raided the Yawata steel works from bases in China; only one plane actually hit the target area, and only with one of its bombs. This single 500 lb (230 kg) general purpose bomb represented one quarter of one percent of the 376 bombs dropped over Yawata on that mission. It took 108 B-17 bombers, crewed by 1,080 airmen, dropping 648 bombs to guarantee a 96 percent chance of getting just two hits inside a 400 x 500 ft (150 m) German power-generation plant."
Early in the movie a cadet has moral scruples about bombing women and children. Oh, but that's what the wicked enemy does, he's told; our side bombs only military targets and does it with wonderful precision. Total nonsense again, on both counts.
As for entertainment value, "Bombardier" has just about none. There's a little bit of information about how bombing crews are trained and a few interesting shots of Flying Fortresses——on the ground——but nothing else. There's the usual attempt to add a little romance and a bit of drama about who will pass and who will fail in the training, and whether anybody is afraid (sure, they are, but only a little), but it's all very lame. The dialogue can make you cringe, particularly the lines given to women. Almost all the flying scenes are done badly with pitiful models. The air battle near the end is almost laughable. As the film ends, a final shot is supposed to show a sky crowded with bombers in formation, but the artist who drew the scene has the sky so full of them, so jam-packed together that they're just about overlapping each other, like a flock of starlings.
Or how about this for crappy writing? Near the beginning, the air force brass are talking about Hitler's Stuka attacks in Europe and how the U.S. had better get prepared in case one day it has to fight him. At the end our bombardiers are bombing Nagoya. But at no moment in between do we hear about Pearl Harbor or the start of the war for the U.S. Forgot to mention that, I guess.
Don't waste your time. I did, and I regret it.
Total nonsense. Even when the movie was made, nobody could have believed it. Here is a good example of wildly inaccurate bombing was right to the end of the war, from the article on precision bombing in Wikipedia: "In the summer of 1944, 47 B- 29's raided the Yawata steel works from bases in China; only one plane actually hit the target area, and only with one of its bombs. This single 500 lb (230 kg) general purpose bomb represented one quarter of one percent of the 376 bombs dropped over Yawata on that mission. It took 108 B-17 bombers, crewed by 1,080 airmen, dropping 648 bombs to guarantee a 96 percent chance of getting just two hits inside a 400 x 500 ft (150 m) German power-generation plant."
Early in the movie a cadet has moral scruples about bombing women and children. Oh, but that's what the wicked enemy does, he's told; our side bombs only military targets and does it with wonderful precision. Total nonsense again, on both counts.
As for entertainment value, "Bombardier" has just about none. There's a little bit of information about how bombing crews are trained and a few interesting shots of Flying Fortresses——on the ground——but nothing else. There's the usual attempt to add a little romance and a bit of drama about who will pass and who will fail in the training, and whether anybody is afraid (sure, they are, but only a little), but it's all very lame. The dialogue can make you cringe, particularly the lines given to women. Almost all the flying scenes are done badly with pitiful models. The air battle near the end is almost laughable. As the film ends, a final shot is supposed to show a sky crowded with bombers in formation, but the artist who drew the scene has the sky so full of them, so jam-packed together that they're just about overlapping each other, like a flock of starlings.
Or how about this for crappy writing? Near the beginning, the air force brass are talking about Hitler's Stuka attacks in Europe and how the U.S. had better get prepared in case one day it has to fight him. At the end our bombardiers are bombing Nagoya. But at no moment in between do we hear about Pearl Harbor or the start of the war for the U.S. Forgot to mention that, I guess.
Don't waste your time. I did, and I regret it.