The Aviator is far, far better than I had expected following the last Scorsese/DiCaprio partnership, Gangs of New York. Though it slows down significantly towards the end, becoming a drawn out study of obsessive-compulsive disorder and a courtroom drama, two slightly dull things to end a movie on, overall I was hooked from start to finish.

It reminded me of Francis Ford Coppola’s Tucker: The Man and His Dream a lot. Both about very similar characters, taking their desire for success to lengths most perceive as almost insane.

Leonardo DiCaprio is brilliant as Hughes, Cate Blanchett turns in a superbly quirky performance as Katherine Hepburn, every bit as good as I’d heard; it is tremendously quirky, and when she first appeared onscreen I thought I wasn’t going to be able to stand it for a whole movie, but she won me over in just one scene. She’ll be getting the Oscar, I’m sure. Another Oscar this movie completely deserves (though I’m sure it will win them all) is for its stunning cinematography by Robert Richardson: some of the aerial shots seriously took my breath away.

Perhaps, just perhaps, Scorsese still has it in him.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 15th, 2005 at 5:26 pm in Movie Reviews, unrated. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.