My Thoughts on "Devotion"
Note:
This was originally written on Friday March 3, 2023 and was posted on DeviantART on Friday March 10, 2023. This was a movie that I had wanted to see in theaters, but didn't get to. While everyone else was going to go see Avatar: The Way of Water 💦 and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, I had wanted to see Devotion. Why? Because it was one of the few Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 movies that had come out in the past few decades. When I first heard about it, I initially thought that it was a World War II movie, and I was disinterested in it because the only kind of war movies Hollywood tends to make nowadays are World War II movies, and World War II has been done to death.
There was a short time when people were making World War I movies, especially in the wake of 1917, the groundbreaking World War I movie from Sam Mendes that was shot and edited as if it were one take. And also that Peter Jackson World War I documentary, They Shall Not Grow Old. But, that was short-lived, and Hollywood for the most part has pretty much stopped making World War I movies or any other World War I related content. Personally, I blame The King's Man 😒.
And there was that Vietnam War 🇻🇳 movie boom in the 1980s, brought about by movies such as Apocalypse Now, First Blood 🩸, Platoon, and The Deer Hunter 🦌, but there hasn't really been that many Vietnam War 🇻🇳 movies since then. The number of Vietnam War 🇻🇳 movies getting made has steadily decreased since the end of the 80s. Every once in a while you'll get a movie like Air America 🇺🇸, We Were Soldiers, Da 5 Bloods 🩸, or even Tropic Thunder if you want to count that, but for most part, Hollywood just isn't making as many Vietnam War 🇻🇳 movies as they did in the 70s and the 80s.
For the most part, it's just been World War II movies as well as War on Terror movies, mostly Iraq War 🇮🇶 movies. And when they do World War II movies, it's usually the same. The mostly just focus on the European theater and Hitler and the Nazis. They hardly ever make World War II movies centered around the Pacific theater and the Japanese 🇯🇵, and even when they do, they usually just do Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway, the Battle of Iwo Jima sometimes, and the Guadalcanal campaign.
The Pacific is only mainstream TV series about the Pacific theater in recent decades that featured other battles and campaigns besides Pearl Harbor, Midway, and Guadalcanal. Like, the Battle of Peleliu, they dedicated three episodes to the Battle of Peleliu, or the Battle of Okinawa, those aren't battles that get depicted or represented in World War II media as much compared to Pearl Harbor, Midway, Iwo Jima, and Guadalcanal. Pearl Harbor and Midway aren't even featured in The Pacific, they're mentioned, but they aren't shown.
But, you hardly ever see the Philippines campaign 🇵🇭 get represented in media about World War II or the Pacific theater, you hardly see the New Britain campaign, you hardly see the Burma Campaign, you hardly see the Second Sino-Japanese War 🇹🇼🇯🇵, you hardly see the Battle of Guam 🇬🇺 (both the first and second battles), you hardly see the Battle of Hong Kong 🇭🇰, you hardly see the Battle of Singapore 🇸🇬, you hardly see the Battle of Saipan, or you hardly see the Battle of Tinian, you hardly see the Battle of Angaur, you hardly see the Battle of the Coral Sea, or the Battle of the Malacca Strait, so on. There are so many stories you can explore with the Pacific theater of World War II, and yet, hardly any of them get covered or covered often as Hollywood would much rather focus on the European theater.
The only mainstream Hollywood movie that I can think of that actually covered the Battle of Saipan for instance is Windtalkers, that movie that was about Navajo code talkers from Hong Kong director 🇭🇰, John Woo. And even then, it wasn't the main focus as the movie jumped around, and covered a few other battles in the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign and the Solomon Islands campaign. In fact, the movie starts with the Solomon Islands campaign. It makes sense why the Burma Campaign, the Battle of Hong Kong 🇭🇰, the Battle of Singapore 🇸🇬, the Battle of Malacca Strait, and the Second Sino-Japanese War 🇹🇼🇯🇵 aren't really depicted or depicted as often since none of those battles or campaigns involved the United States 🇺🇸 or involved it directly.
The US 🇺🇸 did support the Chinese 🇹🇼 in their war against the Japanese 🇯🇵, but they didn't get directly involved or fight inside China 🇹🇼 itself, even after they officially joined World War II. But, for some of these other battles and campaigns like New Britain, Guam 🇬🇺, the Coral Sea, Tinian, Angaur, and the Philippines 🇵🇭, they did involve the US 🇺🇸, the US 🇺🇸 did fight the Japanese 🇯🇵 directly. So, it doesn't make sense why Hollywood doesn't do more movies about them.
Like, why aren't there more movies about the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle of the war and one of the largest naval battles in history, or the Battle of Leyte, or the Battle of Mindoro, or the Battle of Luzon, or the Battle of Manila, the battles that actually brought about the liberation of the Philippines 🇵🇭? The lack of movies on the Battle of Leyte and Battle of Manila particularly doesn't make sense since the Battle of Leyte was the battle where that iconic photo of Douglas MacArthur walking in knee-deep water 💦 onto the beach at Palo was taken.
And the Battle of Manila was of the bloodiest and most destructive battles 🩸 of the Pacific theater and of World War II as a whole. It's been described by some as the Stalingrad of the East or the Asian Stalingrad, that's how bad it was. But, it was a crucial battle because it solidified the recapture of the Philippines 🇵🇭 by the Allies. It would make for a pretty harrowing story. Or even a lesser known and less consequential campaign, the Aleutian Islands campaign, the only military campaign in World War II that was actually fought on North American soil. I'm sure you could make a great movie or show out of that campaign.
But, anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that the only historical war that Hollywood tends to focus on and make movies and TV shows about is World War II, and they usually only narrowly focus on the European theater, and ignore the Pacific theater almost entirely. It's just repeating the same stuff, and treading the same ground that other filmmakers have done about World War II. So, when I found out that this movie, Devotion was a Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 movie, my interest was peaked a little bit more. You want to talk about a war that Hollywood ignores, the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 is the most slept on historical war that the US 🇺🇸 has been involved. There have been a lot of Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 movies and TV shows over the decades, but most of them are from South Korea 🇰🇷. Which lines up perfectly with how well the war is remembered and much it's talked about in the countries that were involved.
In South Korea 🇰🇷, the war is remembered quite well since it happened in their own country, their own land, it was largely their own people that died, and the South Korean people 🇰🇷 see the war as a defining moment in their history. While, in the US 🇺🇸, the war is a "forgotten war" as it was overshadowed by both World War II and the Vietnam War 🇻🇳 within the public consciousness, and thus isn't as discussed or remembered as well as those two wars. It had the misfortune of being sandwiched in-between those two larger wars, and being much shorter than either of them. Even though, of course, the war was a big deal when it was actually happening, like it was in the news, and it did affect American culture 🇺🇸 a bit. Again, not to the same extent as either World War II or Vietnam 🇻🇳, but still significant. I mean, Korea was mentioned in a book 📖 about dating advice at the time.
When it comes to American entertainment 🇺🇸 about the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷, the most well-known and high profile is M*A*S*H, a comedy drama show that centered around a MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) unit. The Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 was the conflict that introduced MASH units, field hospitals that would treat wounded and sick soldiers from the battlefield. MASH units would be used in pretty much every conflict the US 🇺🇸 would fight in up until the Gulf War, when MASH units were finally phased out and replaced with Combat support hospitals, CSHs for short. So, obviously, when someone decided to do a TV show on the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷, they decided to center it around a MASH unit. Contrary to what some might believe, the M*A*S*H TV show did not come first.
The M*A*S*H movie from 1970 came first, and then it was adapted into a TV series. Both the movie and the show were actually based on a book 📖 called MASH: A Novel About Three Doctors, which was a work of fiction. Even though, it was about a real type of field hospital the US Army 🇺🇸 used, the specific MASH unit featured in the book 📖, movie, and TV show was completely fictional. The M*A*S*H franchise as a whole can definitely be considered historical fiction.
However, even though M*A*S*H was set during the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 and was about an aspect of the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷, the movie and the show were kind of metaphors for Vietnam 🇻🇳. The people who made M*A*S*H basically used to express their feelings and angst about the Vietnam War 🇻🇳, but didn't want to actually make it about the Vietnam War 🇻🇳 since it was still an on-going conflict when the movie came out.
So, they chose the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 because it was far enough the past that people would remember it, and get it, but also not so recent that it would offend anyone. So, they essentially a Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 show that was really about Vietnam 🇻🇳. So, it sort of counts, but it also kind of doesn't. M*A*S*H was a product of its time, and was used as an outlet to discuss or explore the trauma and angst about the Vietnam War 🇻🇳, a war that is arguably just as divisive today as it was back then.
Had it not been made during the time and culture of the Vietnam War 🇻🇳, M*A*S*H probably would've never been made, and if it was, it would've been totally different. A M*A*S*H remake, god forbid if one ever happens, would be completely different from the original just for the simple fact that it's made during a different time, and not during the time of the Vietnam War 🇻🇳.
In China 🇨🇳, the war is not remembered or talked about as much as it is in South Korea 🇰🇷, but is still remembered and talked about a lot more than it is here in the US 🇺🇸. In China 🇨🇳, the war is usually brought up in propaganda "documentaries" as a way to make the US 🇺🇸 look bad and make it seem like the war was all our fault, and making China 🇨🇳 look good and like their involvement in the war was completely justified. The Chinese 🇨🇳, or at least, the Chinese government 🇨🇳, are proud of what they did in Korea, and they want their people to be proud of what their country did in that war, and think it was a "good war."
It was a "good war" in a sense, but on China 🇨🇳's side since they were fighting on North Korea 🇰🇵's side, the actual aggressor of the war, and the one who started it in the first place. China 🇨🇳's intervention was not justified, and they were not fighting a good fight. They were fighting for the preservation of a horrible regime that only got worse after the war. But, the Chinese government 🇨🇳 and the Chinese state-run media 🇨🇳 try to frame the war as a national security issue, like they only got involved because their own national security was threatened by the war, even though it wasn't.
Mao and the CCP ☭ may have actually felt that way at the time, but their national security was not actually threatened by the UN offensive 🇺🇳 into North Korea 🇰🇵, and the possibility of the North Korean regime 🇰🇵 being toppled. Given what North Korea 🇰🇵 was, and what it is today, the Chinese 🇨🇳 would have benefited more from North Korea 🇰🇵 being toppled, and the ROK (Republic of Korea) 🇰🇷 moving in and absorbing the north.
China 🇨🇳 really didn't gain anything meaningful for defending North Korea 🇰🇵 in the war, other than they had a like-minded regime to act as a buffer against a pro-US country 🇺🇸 with US military bases 🇺🇸. But, again, China 🇨🇳 does more business with South Korea 🇰🇷, and has more of an actual relationship with it than North Korea 🇰🇵. The Chinese 🇨🇳 actually prefer South Korea 🇰🇷 over North Korea 🇰🇵 nowadays. The Russians 🇷🇺 benefit more from North Korea 🇰🇵 still existing than the Chinese 🇨🇳 do. Maybe with Xi Jinping in office, that's beginning to change, but even then, Xi isn't always 100% on board with what Kim Jong-un and the North Korean regime 🇰🇵 does.
But, Mao was an authoritarian, he was a fanatic, and he felt compelled to intervene in the war in the name of the revolution, in the name of defending communism ☭. It really had nothing to do with national security, or defending China 🇨🇳's borders or territorial integrity, despite what China 🇨🇳's propaganda says. If Mao really cared about defending his country and protecting its territorial integrity, he could've just had troops guarding and patrolling the border. He didn't need to actually send troops deep into Korea itself, fight and kill UN troops 🇺🇳, and capture Seoul. Like how did capturing Seoul help China 🇨🇳's national security or territorial integrity?
The reality is that he got involved and invaded the Korean peninsula because he didn't North Korea 🇰🇵 to fall, and for the peninsula to be unified under the ROK government 🇰🇷. And so, China 🇨🇳 is just stuck with North Korea 🇰🇵, without really knowing what to do with it. I wrote an article that talks about China 🇨🇳's weird and complicated relationship with North Korea 🇰🇵 more deeply, and I will post it in the near future.
So, Devotion was the only movie that I had any interest in seeing in theaters back in December 2022. But, I didn't get the chance to, and I ended up having to watch it when it came out on Blu-Ray 💿. And I liked it, I liked a lot. I certainly liked it a lot more than that other Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 movie that I had bought and seen a couple years prior, The Battle of Jangsari, which was a South Korean and American co-production 🇺🇸🇰🇷.
It was mostly a South Korean movie 🇰🇷 with a majority South Korean cast 🇰🇷, but it did feature American actors 🇺🇸 in English speaking roles, such as Megan Fox and George Eads. It's also a sequel to another Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 film called Operation Chromite (or Battle for Incheon: Operation Chromite as its known here in the US 🇺🇸), which focused on the Battle of Incheon, and featured Liam Neeson as Douglas MacArthur. The events of The Battle of Jangsari take place at the same time as the events of Operation Chromite. It was alright, but it wasn't exactly would I call a great movie.
I also would not call Devotion a great movie either, but it is a decent movie. If you're tired of all the World War II movies, and want to see something different, then you'll probably enjoy this movie. I will say it takes long for the movie to actually get to the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷, since a lot of it focuses on the training, and them being on an aircraft carrier, and they even stop in Cannes for some R & R. It's just like that one episode of The Pacific, where the Marines stop by in Melbourne after fighting in Guadalcanal. Only here, there's no battle or action beforehand before they get to Cannes.
They don't even get to Korea until the last third of the movie, and even then, the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 part, the part we actually came to see, only lasts for 10, 20, or 30 minutes of the runtime. The Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 part makes up such a small portion of this movie. It is a bit disappointing in that aspect, but when we do actually get to the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 stuff and the dogfights, it's pretty cool. And there's enough good stuff before that to keep your attention, and makes the movie a bit more worth it and not a complete waste of your time. But still, I wish the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 part made up a much larger and more significant portion of the movie, like I wish the majority of the movie was that. That's certainly how it was advertised, but it wasn't.
Of course, it stars Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell. I said this in the review itself, but it is kind of funny how Glen Powell was in two military aviation movies the same year, Top Gun: Maverick and Devotion. Of course, the characters Glen Powell plays in both movies are completely different from each other. His character, Hangman in Top Gun: Maverick was kind of an ass, and not really likeable, while his character in this movie, Tom Hudner is much nicer and much more mellow by comparison. Tom is also an actual person who lived (I think the real Tom already passed away), while Hangman is a purely fictional character.
And of course, Jonathan Majors is in this movie, in the lead role as Jesse Brown, the ill-fated black naval aviator who was close friends with Tom Hudner, and was shot down over North Korea 🇰🇵 where he pretty much bled and froze to death 🩸🥶. I had wrote this before that whole incident involving his girlfriend and being accused of domestic abuse, and being he was found guilty in a court of law 🧑⚖️⚖️, which pretty much torpedoed his career. I have never seen a star rise and then fall from grace as quickly as Jonathan Majors. But, he did do an interview with ABC towards the end of 2023 or the beginning of 2024 (I don't remember), where he gave his side of the story, and tried to rehabilitate his image. And I guess it was successful, as more people came out of watching that interview feeling sympathy for Jonathan Majors than before.
The sympathy for him also increased after TMZ released a video showing that Jonathan Majors's now ex-girlfriend may not be as of a victim as she tried to present. Whether or not he'll actually make a career comeback from this is yet to be seen. I wouldn't be surprised if he did considering how many actors over the years have down terrible things, said terrible things, or have been accused of doing terrible things, and yet made comebacks and were still allowed to work and make money 💵.
Just think of Mel Gibson, or John Lasseter, or Roman Polanski, a man who we all know raped a 13 year old girl ♀︎, and yet is still celebrated as a great director and even won an Oscar for best director for The Pianist 🎹, a World War II movie by coincidence. So, if men ♂︎ like that who did or said terrible things worse than what Jonathan Majors was accused of or has been revealed to have actually done were still able to comeback, make millions of dollars 💵, and still be respected, then I don't see why Jonathan Majors would be any different. But, only time will tell what's in store for him.
I think it would probably be difficult for him to come back to Marvel for instance since they fired him after that guilty verdict was announced, and I'm sure they've already decided to recast him and have moved towards that. So, I think Majors is out of Marvel for good, just like Terrence Howard was after the first Iron Man, or Edward Norton was after The Incredible Hulk. I could be wrong, but that's the impression I'm getting from all this, and what Marvel has done in the past when they've fired somebody or had a falling out with them. The only person that Marvel has fired who came back was James Gunn, but even then he didn't stay for long since he secured a new job as the head of DC Studios, becoming essentially the Kevin Fiege of DC.
Even with Johnny Depp, a similar case as Jonathan Majors, even though he won his case against Amber Heard, Depp hasn't actually made a comeback. Hollywood is still not trying to get back in good graces with him, and he's still not being offered any new jobs. Maybe soon in the future, but not right now. It seems that Johnny Depp's victory in the courtroom ⚖️ has not had any positive effect on his career. I feel like the same may end up just happening to Jonathan Majors, especially since he lost his case, and was found guilty. But, again, maybe I'm wrong. We'll just have to see how it goes from here on out.
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So, it's refreshing to have a Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 movie for once, since that war hasn't been properly covered in American film 🇺🇸, and it is just as fascinating as World War II or Vietnam 🇻🇳. It was just a brutal as Vietnam 🇻🇳, like I think almost as many people died in Korea 🇰🇵🇰🇷 as they did in Vietnam 🇻🇳, and Korea 🇰🇵🇰🇷 arguably was a precursor to what would happen in Vietnam 🇻🇳, just a few years later, since the Vietnam War 🇻🇳 (or Second Indochina War) officially started in 1955, and the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 ended in 1953.
And while Vietnam 🇻🇳 is mostly thought of as a "guerrilla war" or a "counter insurgency war," where the US military 🇺🇸 fought a bunch of "rice farmers 🌾" with AK-47s, RPGs, and booby traps, in an extremely inhospitable and unforgiving jungle, but there were parts of the war that were just mechanized as Korea 🇰🇵🇰🇷 was, with tanks, artillery pieces, regular army infantry units, and fighter jets such as the Easter Offensive. The North Vietnamese 🇻🇳 were receiving Soviet tanks ☭, which they used against the American 🇺🇸 and South Vietnamese forces.
Anyway, that being said, the actual Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 part of the movie doesn't actually start happening until the halfway point. Most of the first half of this movie is them training, or being deployed in Europe, not really doing anything except paperwork, and inspections, checking to see the equipment on the planes work. This movie does a good job of showing the boring side of being in the Navy, especially being in the Navy during peacetime. But, this does give us enough time to get introduced to our characters, which is Ensign Jesse Brown (played by Jonathan Majors) and Lieutenant Tom Hudner (Glen Powell).
Both Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell do a great job in this movie. Glen Powell of course was in Top Gun: Maverick, where he played the naval aviator known as Hangman. So, he was two naval aviator movies last year, in 2022. His character, Tom Hudner is basically Jesse Brown's wingman, and while Jesse doesn't quite trust him at first given the time period that this is, he quickly becomes one of his best friends.
I loved him as Kang the Conqueror, he was by far the best aspect of Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania 🐜. He's good at playing a villain, and he's good at playing a hero as well, as this movie shows. He managed to make Jesse Brown stoic and silent, and yet, still have a bit of humor to him as well because the real Jesse Brown was apparently, a really funny guy 😄, a real fun guy to be around. This is shown most clearly during the section where they're in Cannes, France 🇫🇷, and Jesse takes the boys to the casino 🎰 to meet this female movie star ⭐️ that he bumped into on the beach, and then when they're at that outdoor bar, just drinking, flirting with girls, and having a good time.
And he has the angry, the fear, the self-doubt, and aggression that comes with the territory of being a person of color in a white dominated environment where people of color aren't fully accepted or welcomed as well, it's a very nuanced and complex performance. Jonathan Majors is an awesome actor, and a rising star ⭐️ for sure. This movie does deal with the topic of black naval aviators, or black military servicemen in general and the hardships they had to deal with in a time when segregation was still a thing, blacks didn't enjoy the same rights as whites, and there was still widespread racism in American society 🇺🇸; there is still racism in American society 🇺🇸 now, but it isn't as bad it was back then in 1950 and 1951, which is when this movie takes place. Jesse Brown wasn't the first black airman in the US military 🇺🇸 ever. There were the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II, but Jesse Brown was one of the first black naval aviators, if not the first black naval aviator, and he is the one of the most well known.
The Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 of course was the first war in American history 🇺🇸 to have mixed units in all branches of the military, including the Navy, so this movie delves into that a little bit. It shows a bit of the difficulties that black servicemen had to go through to join the military, and serve their country, and it shows Jesse Brown's hardships and difficulties while being a naval aviator. And I would say that it handles all of the racism stuff in a very tactical way. I was kind of nervous and anxious while watching this movie because I always get like that when I watch a movie that has a racial component to it, and it shows this part of American history 🇺🇸, this very shameful part of American history 🇺🇸.
I kept worrying that something bad would happen to Jesse, and that it would be because of racism. There is some of that in this movie, Jesse does get harassed and treated pretty badly for his race, for his skin color, like this one asshole Marine who heckles him, and then tries to pick a fight with him at the bar in France 🇫🇷 for messing up his date with that movie star ⭐️. He even gets denied access to that casino 🎰 that he was invited to by that movie star ⭐️ because of his race, until he speaks French to the two door guys (I don't know the proper term for that), surprising them and the other guys in his squadron.
It was really tough to see him die at the end, when he crash lands in Korea after him and the Fighter Squadron 32 (VFA-32) provide air support to the Marines fighting in the Chosin Reservoir, and he gets an oil leak in his Corsair. He crash lands somewhere in a snowy North Korean forest 🇰🇵🌲❄️. And he gets stuck in the cockpit, like his legs get stuck in the dashboard or avionics or whatever it's called, and they can't get him out. So, he both bleeds to death 🩸 from his injuries, and freezes to death ❄️ because of the cold Korean winter weather ❄️, a double whammy; the cold 🥶 was one of the things that made the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 such an awful war to fight in.
I was really hoping that he survived, or that they got him out somehow, but he doesn't and they don't because that's the real history, that's what actually happened. Jesse did not come back home from Korea. His remains haven't even been recovered, like his family and Tom's family (who have remained close after all these years) have tried to recover his remains, so that they could be returned to the States 🇺🇸, and he could be given a proper burial at Arlington Cemetery. But, considering that he crash landed in North Korea 🇰🇵, that may be easier said than done.
The movie doesn't really delve too deeply into the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 itself or why it's being fought, like it mostly stays focuses on telling the biographies of Jesse Brown and Tom Hudner, and the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷 is kind of just a backdrop, this one war that they happened to be apart of. It doesn't even really delve too deeply into the battles it depicts like the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, which was one of the bloodiest battles 🩸 of the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷, and is often seen as a turning point in the war because that was after the Chinese 🇨🇳 entered the war, and when they were conducting their offensive against the South Korean 🇰🇷 and UN forces 🇺🇳, pushing them out of North Korea 🇰🇵.
We don't get to really see the enemy either, like we don't see the Chinese 🇨🇳 or the North Koreans 🇰🇵, and see their perspective on things. We don't even see any South Koreans 🇰🇷 or any of the other UN forces 🇺🇳 involved besides the US 🇺🇸. But, that's fine, this movie really didn't need to do that. It was hyper focused on one aspect of the war, on a couple of naval aviators, and stayed focused on that the entire way, and didn't jump around and to tell every aspect of the Korean War 🇰🇵🇰🇷, or even every aspect of the Battle of Chosin Reservoir; things that were out of the scope of what this movie was trying to do.
It was nice to see all the different planes that they had in this movie. As someone who is a bit of an aviation enthusiast, someone who really likes military aircraft, this movie was a treat. Not only did they have F4U Corsairs, but they also had AD Skyraiders, F8F Bearcats, a HO5S-1 helicopter, and a MiG-15. While the F-18 Hornet and Super Hornet are still my favorite fighter jets of all time, the Corsair is still beautiful plane in its own right, it has a very aesthetically pleasing design. It was sort like the A-10 Warthog of its day, as it was mostly used for bombing missions and for close air support.
On top of that, a lot of the flying scenes were practical, like they took a page from Top Gun: Maverick's playbook and tried to do as many of the flying sequences practically with real airplanes. Though, I will say that the flying scenes in this movie were a lot less practical than the ones in Top Gun: Maverick, like more CGI was used for the flying scenes in this movie than in Top Gun: Maverick. And that's mostly just due to the age of the aircraft they're deal with and the limitations of what they can do in their current conditions, like some of planes here were literal museum pieces. You aren't going to be able to do all or the majority of the flying scenes practically with a Corsair or a Bearcat or a MiG-15 like you could with an F-18 or an F-35 or a Su-57. Like, I believe the MiG-15 in the movie is all CG, like no practical or real plane was used for the MiG-15, though to be fair, the Su-57s in Top Gun: Maverick were all CG too; so was the Mil Mi-24 helicopter in the film as well.
One last thing that I noticed, and does sort of bother me before I wrap this up is that in the scene where they go to Cannes, they used the wrong Greek flag 🇬🇷. There's this strip mall of sorts, and they have a bunch of different flags of different countries on display outside the stores and shops, they used the wrong Greek flag 🇬🇷 for the time. This was not the national flag of Greece at the time 🇬🇷🚫, they had a completely different flag than the one used now.
Greece 🇬🇷 was still a monarchy back then 👑, it was still the Kingdom of Greece, and the flag was a blue one with a white cross in the center, and a gold crown 👑 on top. So, the use of this flag 🇬🇷 in that scene was totally anachronistic. I mean, this was the naval flag 🇬🇷 at the time, but still, it's weird for a store or a shop to display a naval flag of a country instead of the national flag, unless it's Japan 🇯🇵. A lot of people use the Imperial Japanese naval flag to represent Imperial Japan 🇯🇵, even though Imperial Japan 🇯🇵 had the same national flag as modern-day Japan 🇯🇵; the red sun was just a darker shade of red than the one on the current flag. The whole wrong usage of the Greek flag 🇬🇷 is just a minor nitpick in an otherwise good movie, and it's something that most people probably won't notice unless they're really into flags, and know what the historical Greek flag looked like.
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Actually, scratch that about the Greek flag 🇬🇷 being wrong. I looked it on Wikipedia, and it turns out that this 🇬🇷 is the correct flag. You see, Greece used this flag 🇬🇷 for use abroad, like if anyone in another country wanted to display the Greek flag, they'd display this one 🇬🇷. It was also used as a civil ensign, a flag used to denote nationality for civilian vessels, as well as being the naval flag. The flag that I'm thinking of was only used as a state flag, within the borders of Greece 🇬🇷 by the government.
So if you lived in Greece 🇬🇷 at that time, you would see that state flag with the cross and crown 👑 in the center, especially if you went to a governmental building. But, if you lived in another country, and someone was displaying the Greek flag for civilian use or government use (like US government 🇺🇸 or French government 🇫🇷 displaying the flag for a Greek government visit 🇬🇷 to their countries), this would be the flag that you would see 🇬🇷. The big change as far as the usage of the flag goes is that this 🇬🇷 became the only official national flag of the country in 1978, both at home and abroad. Greece 🇬🇷 was already a republic by then, and the state flag with the cross and crown 👑 was already abandoned (since the country no longer had a monarchy).
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