Rated: PG
Running Time: 111 Minutes
Release Date: 23-Oct-2009
Nudity: None
One Sentence: A mediocre biopic of one of America's most famous heroes.
I will not say that I know a lot about the life and times of Amelia Earhart, so I will not act like this movie is or is not an accurate portrayal of her life. I don't think however that there is ever an expectation of that. What we do look for is something about these peoples lives that we would not suspect or know happened. Those things might be dramatized or overdone, but it at least causes intrest or a new point of view. Amelia doesn't seem to want to portray any of these things and instead create a movie about the romances of her life, perhaps that was the things that needed to be dramatized but for a woman who has done so much, romance seems to be pretty low on the list.
Diminished to a woman in love who happened to fly planes and sell her luggage to pay for them, Amelia does nothing to capture the intrigue of the nation that she caused when she made her famous flights. Instead we are given a forced horrible imitation of Earhart by Hillary Swank and a long drawn out story about her love life while putting her achievements in the world as an aside. Some shown and the last 15 minutes of the movie finally seems to create the fear and tension that these types of flights would have been like then, but it only ever seems like a small part of the movie and story and rarely are we given the idea that is it something amazing and truly dangerous. The movie felt like a disservice to Amelia Earhart and the things she did in her life.
I would not say this movie is bad, I just think it is not the movie I would have expected it to be, and I thought it was a little slow. I think if you are into biopic's then this one is at least viewable and you would be fine with it at home on your couch. I do not think you have to go out this weekend to the theater to see it and I think those of you that generally dislike these type's of movies will not think differently about Amelia.
