Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Aces: Iron Eagle III Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov January 30, 2020

John Glen's " Aces: Iron Eagle III" (1992) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the disc include a vintage trailer for the film as well as archival production stills. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

All of these drugs were on my friend's plane?

The other two Iron Eagle films are not yet available on Blu-ray, so you are probably wondering now if you can enjoy the third film without having seen them. The answer is yes, because each film tells a unique story. Louis Gossett Jr.’s character, a veteran pilot named Chappy, just happens to be the big star in all of them.

During an air show, Chappy is informed that a good friend has died in a secluded area in South America, and then learns that the plane he was flying was carrying a large load of drugs. Soon after, Chappy meets his sister, Anna (Rachel McLish), who informs him that the plane was actually shot down by Gustav Kleiss (Paul Freeman), a former Nazi-turned-drug dealer, whose associates have taken over a small village in Peru and forced everyone that lives there to package his product. Because her elderly father is amongst Kleiss’ hostages, Anna plans a rescue mission to free the village and avenge the death of her brother.

While sharing some of his findings with General Simms (Mitchell Ryan), who was overseeing the dead man’s mission, Chappy realizes that the drugs were intended for someone at the base where his plane was stationed, but his request for a thorough investigation is quickly dismissed. However, instead of giving up on his friend, Chappy teams up with his partners from the air show -- Palmer (Christopher Cazenove), Leichman (Horst Buchholz) and Horikoshi (Sonny Chiba) -- and together with Anna and a bunch of other volunteers heads down to Peru to take out Kleiss and find out who was his American connection at the base.

Early in his career John Glen directed a couple of very good James Bond films, but Aces: Iron Eagle III does not match their quality. Simply put, it is a B-film whose one and only attractive asset is the presence of a few aged stars with rather admirable enthusiasm for their characters.

The few twists that at the very core of the narrative are entirely predictable and yet the film does not do any hard work to convince that it isn’t so. This frees up the stars to do some quite good improvising which ends up providing enough proper energy to make the air action entertaining. Of course, the big battle can’t compete with the showoff material from Top Gun, but it is decent enough and actually surprisingly well edited.

The ground action is what hurts the film because it was done with very little money and fast, plus a lot of the extras are amateurs that are rarely on the same page with the stars. Most seasoned viewers will quickly notice that the camera is in fact fully aware that it is so because during the busiest mass footage it tries to keep them in the corners of the image frame where the significance of their presence is greatly minimized.

Glen worked with cinematographer Alex Mills, who had earlier lensed Licence to Kill, but this is basically a curious fact. While technically not disappointing, their collaboration on this film is entirely forgettable. On the other hand, there is a surprisingly good soundtrack from Harry Manfredini, who scored the classic Friday the 13th.

Aces: Iron Eagle III Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Aces: Iron Eagle III arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Video.

The release is sourced from an older but good master that was supplied by StudioCanal. Indeed, because no attempts were made to 'improve' the master with digital tools, the entire film has a stable organic appearance. Now, there are still some minor fluctuations that reveal minor weaknesses, but they don't the typical digital qualities that make many older masters problematic. Basically, there are some very small flucutations that prevent select darker areas from having optimal depth, and from time to time light black crush flattens some native nuances. A few highlights are elevated as well, causing existing nuances in well-lit footage to struggle a bit. But the rest looks good, at times -- with close-ups in particular -- even very good. Colors are stable and nicely balanced. Image stability is very good as well. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Aces: Iron Eagle III Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

I was quite surprised by the elaborate orchestral soundtrack that was created for this film, and then rather impressed by the manner in which the lossless track handles it. The lossless track really sounds great -- it is clean, sharp, nicely balanced, and with excellent ranges of nuanced dynamics. If possible, when viewing the film turn up the volume on your system, and I guarantee you will be pleasantly surprised as well. There are no encoding anomalies to report.

Aces: Iron Eagle III Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - a strange vintage trailer for Aces: Iron Eagle III. It is strange because it is framed in a 2.35:1 ratio, which isn't the film's native ratio. In English, not subtitled. (3 min, 480/60i).

• Stills - a collection of production stills. B&W and Color. (7 min, 1080p).

• Additional Trailers - additional trailers for the following titles from Kino Lorber's catalog:
  
  1. Fire Birds
  2. Terminal Velocity
  3. Bat 21
  4. Diggstown
  5. The Laughing Policeman

Aces: Iron Eagle III Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Aces: Iron Eagle III delivers late-night entertainment of the kind that you would get from films such as Last Plane Out and Acapulco Gold. Basically, you should expect a nice dose of exotic action mixed up with a proper dose of B-grade acting. The wee hours of the night is when I find these films most effective, and I actually regularly make room for them in my viewing schedule because they keep things in perspective for me. Aces: Iron Eagle III is not a minor gem that is waiting to be rediscovered, but it is not a bad film either. You just have to see it at the right time to appreciate what it has to offer. Kino Lorber's release is sourced from an old but good master that was supplied by StudioCanal. RECOMMENDED.