The Aviators Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

The Aviators Blu-ray Movie Review

Never quite totally blasts off.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 2, 2015

Who knew an unassuming Spanish animated film from 2008 could impart a bit of a history lesson? Mind you, the film itself doesn’t do much of a job in that regard, but for writers like myself who want to find out a film’s provenance, stumbling across the fact that The Aviators was originally titled Cher Ami... ¡y yo! led me circuitously to a whole host of fascinating information about carrier pigeons during World War I, including a once famous little avian named—well, Cher Ami. Only here’s the kicker: Cher Ami, who evidently was so famous toward the end of World War I and after that its remains were professionally handled by a taxidermist so that the bird could go on permanent display at the Smithsonian Institution (where it evidently still resides), turned out to be (how to put this delicately) chère amie, i.e., “he” was really a “she," a fact that the taxidermist "uncovered" during prep of the remains. This wasn’t a case of cross dressing or gender identity issues, only the idiocy of humans labeling a bird without properly checking it out first, in what turns out to be one of the more hilarious footnotes of human ineptitude in history. The historical Cher Ami, thought to be a cock (in common parlance), heroically saved the so-called Lost Battalion of the 77th Division in the Battle of the Argonne in October of 1918. The many injuries the bird suffered delivering a message which saved the battalion ultimately led to its demise a while later. Cher Ami’s exploits became legend during this period, and books, magazine articles and news coverage came out in droves. I consider myself fairly well versed in history, especially that concerning the two major conflicts of the 20th century, but I have to admit that if I ever knew about Cher Ami, I had completely forgotten when I started watching The Aviators. The film doesn’t really need to rely on the actual historical facts to make sense, since it in fact departs from them rather liberally, to the point where Cher Ami in this film is properly “cher” and “ami,” i.e., a boisterous male (voiced in the English language version by Brad Garrett).

One of the more unexpected pleasures which has come my way as an online reviewer has been my exposure to animated fare from countries other than the United States or England, including everything from anime to Studio Ghibli to any number of really interesting properties from a variety of other locales. What repeatedly strikes me about many of these outings is how structurally different they are from the traditional American animated properties. Quite a bit of the time there’s nothing like a standard “three act” formulation, and the so-called “character arcs” also don’t fit into easily proscribed categories as they so often do in stateside releases. Many “foreign” (for want of a better word) animated offerings don’t even feature traditional villains, something that might strike American viewers as downright confounding.

The Aviators is more decidedly “western” in its approach than many other overseas animated features, but it also shows signs of having either been tinkered with after release or perhaps having fallen victim to some kind of diminution in the production phase. This tends to unfold in terms of sudden jumps in the story and weirdly truncated sequences that sometimes explode out of nowhere and return to that netherworld about as quickly as they first appeared.

One of the structural oddities of the film is how Cher Ami isn’t really that much of a featured player until well into the film. Instead, the opening sequences are much more concerned with an inventor mouse named Lindbergh (Jeff Foxworthy), who is obsessed with creating a flying machine. He is a friend of an ambitious little bird named Tourbillon (the ending credits list a Pedro Torrabadella, but after Garrett and Foxworthy all of the cast appears to be the Spanish language cast; IMDb lists the role as being voiced by Lloyd F. Booth Shankley), a youngster who dreams of joining his elders in the carrier pigeon force which is being assembled at the farm where the film takes place. Even these elements are somewhat haphazardly introduced, with the viewer kind of being plopped down in media res and left to figure out characters and interrelationships as the film progresses.

Perhaps oddly, the film actually posits an avian villain to go alongside the actual advancing Germans. The humans in the film are mere sidebars, and in fact are animated in an almost abstract way, without faces or much in the way of detail. This is resolutely an Animal Farm-esque experience in that everything happens from the creatures’ points of view. A number of underdeveloped side plots actually only end up drawing energy from what becomes the main focus late in the film—Cher Ami finally coming into his own as a hero. A love story between Cher Ami and a comely female pigeon, as well as a traitor amongst the ranks of the farm birds are never given much more than lip service, adding to the film’s kind of truncated ambience.

Perhaps surprisingly The Aviators comes from Miquel Pujol, who gave us the completely unique Chico & Rita a couple of years ago. The Aviators doesn’t exploit an innovative design aesthetic as Pujol’s later film does (nor does it have the propulsive soundtrack), but Pujol creates a very lovingly crafted look here, one that is equal parts Don Bluth and Walt Disney. The characters are all (literally) well drawn, with oodles of personality. The problem is that there’s not a better, more coherent, story to support them.

The Aviators Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Aviators is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. There's a definite "old school" charm to the design aesthetic in this film, and it looks very nice in high definition. The palette tends to be more on the Bluth burnished sienna side than on a brighter Disney primary approach, something that occasionally masks detail in the darker parts of the frame. There's a really interesting difference between the bulk of the film, which focuses on the animals, and the humans, which are presented as more abstract characters (see screenshot 5). The brief human sequences are notably (and I assume intentionally) softer than the bulk of the presentation. Line detail remains strong and there are no issues with image instability.

The Aviators Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Aviators's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix springs vividly to life in some of the manic activities around the farm (there are running gags—literally, in that the farm animals are running for shelter—built around Lindbergh's flying escapades). The rather enjoyably hefty orchestral score by Manel Gil is also placed very well throughout the surrounds. Voice work is given top priority and resonates very cleanly and clearly. Fidelity is excellent and dynamic range is wide in this problem free track.

The Aviators Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements on this Blu-ray disc.

The Aviators Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It's a bit ironic that both the good news and the bad news with regard to The Aviators is that you'll probably end up wanting more once the film is finished. There are simply too many plot points left underdeveloped and a kind of hasty overall approach that subverts what is in essence a very charming and beautifully drawn feature. Pujol is certainly an animator of the highest caliber, and if The Aviators isn't his finest moment, it still has charm to spare, even if it could have benefited from a good 15-20 minutes of more consistent development. Technical merits are generally strong, and with caveats noted (and perhaps at least as a rental if not a purchase), The Aviators comes Recommended.