Amelia has just about everything you want in a biopic: a strong cast, a fascinating subject, and a decades-old mystery that still holds our attention.
And yet the film barely takes flight.
The film is a biography of our most famous female pilot, Amelia Earhart, who in 1937, at the age of 39, disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during an attempt to circumnavigate the world. The movie should be inspirational and emotional, but it's neither.
It is slow, rarely rousing, and spends too much time tangled in the soap-opera escapades of Earhart (Hilary Swank) and her dashing husband, book publisher George Putnam (Richard Gere), and her equally dashing friend, flight enthusiast Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor).
Amelia skips around in time, to Earhart's fateful flight as she and her ace navigator, Fred Noonan (Christopher Eccleston), attempt to be the first to fly around the world; to her childhood and her fascination with planes that darted across the open Kansas prairie, and to her quest to become the first woman to fly the Atlantic.
It's during a job interview for the latter that Earhart meets Putnam, who is coordinating the flight for a wealthy investor, and who hopes to financially benefit from the trip as well.
And yet the film barely takes flight.
The film is a biography of our most famous female pilot, Amelia Earhart, who in 1937, at the age of 39, disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during an attempt to circumnavigate the world. The movie should be inspirational and emotional, but it's neither.
It is slow, rarely rousing, and spends too much time tangled in the soap-opera escapades of Earhart (Hilary Swank) and her dashing husband, book publisher George Putnam (Richard Gere), and her equally dashing friend, flight enthusiast Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor).
Amelia skips around in time, to Earhart's fateful flight as she and her ace navigator, Fred Noonan (Christopher Eccleston), attempt to be the first to fly around the world; to her childhood and her fascination with planes that darted across the open Kansas prairie, and to her quest to become the first woman to fly the Atlantic.
It's during a job interview for the latter that Earhart meets Putnam, who is coordinating the flight for a wealthy investor, and who hopes to financially benefit from the trip as well.
