Warbirds

The Good: dinosaurs and Japanese Zeros in air-to-air combat! The Bad: SyFy Channel 'zero budget movie-of-the-week'. The Ugly: Bad writing even for SyFy Channel, supporting cast.

The concept is great for an afternoon popcorn flick, and the storyline *in general* didn't require too much suspension of disbelief (no impossible physics, or blatant violations of common-sense science that seem all-too-common in recent movies). However, steps taken to get from plot-point A to plot-point B often made no sense at all. It's as if the script were outlined by a decent writer, then fleshed-out by a 12 year-old.

It's no mega-budget blockbuster, but the effects were actually very good for the budget level. *Everything* was done using cgi and green screens though, including anything with a plane in the shot. The picture is good enough, but the not-quite-right flight physics make the effects rather noticeable (look away from any landings, trust me). It works well for the creatures, not so much for airplanes. 10 minutes of stock footage of WWII planes in flight would have made this film much more enjoyable to watch.

The male and female leads do a good job with what they were given, which wasn't much (some of the dialog was just painful to sit through). Some of the supporting cast, however, made me cringe whenever they had speaking parts. In their defense, they were trying to overcome a script that was even worse than the usual SyFy weekly offering.

Overall, the effects were good for the budget, but not enough to make up for the poor writing or mediocre acting. A tolerable 'fix' for those who crave sci-fi, but a disappointing take on an interesting premise.

i can hear the production meeting now: "we've had too many 'people stuck on an island with a monster' movies. how can we freshen it up"? from what must have been the lengthy brainstorming session that followed, here comes the result. i know, let's show women wearing bright red lipstick and put some pomade in their hair. that way, we know we're in the 40's during WW2! here comes sci-fi channel's magnum opus "warbirds". an all-girl flight crew (with a few men along for the ride) are piloting a super secret something-or-other across the pacific when they are attacked by a big bird and forced down on a mysterious island. they meet up with some Japanese soldiers, who are also stranded and attempt to figure out what's hunting them at night and how to escape the island.

This was one of those movies that are made on a cheap budget with bad actors and bad dialogue. My husband and I made some coffee, curled up on the couch, and looked forward to a good movie. Well, what a disappointment!!! We know that the movie 'Killer Tomatoes' was the worst movie ever made ~ well this we voted as the 2nd worst movie ever made!! The acting was appalling, the dialogue was really corny and cheesy, in fact we could have written the script better ourselves. We cannot believe this was only made in 2008 ~ how did it pass as a movie? We have seen better old black and white movies that are still entertaining, but this 2008 movie 'Warbirds' was not entertaining at all. Very weak indeed!

Being a masochist I continue to watch the crud the SciFi pumps out but this one may have been too much even for me. Plot holes the size of the Grand Canyon and factual errors so huge show that you do not need talent or imagination to write for SciFi. The monsters in this are actually a few steps above the usual basement quality effects they churn out but other than that there is NOTHING to recommend this movie. Script and acting are so bad I'm surprised the actors used their real names. Once again the SciFi channel has made me appreciate a film like 'They Saved Hitler's Brain' and perhaps someday they will be able to rise to that level if they put more effort into the project. Obviously written in one afternoon by people who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a word processor.If the founding fathers had seen this coming they might well have lost the Revolution.

Like "Mighty Peking Man", this movie makes no sense, but fails miserably to be boring. Look beyond the baaaaaaaad acting, the immense lapses in logic, and there are some truly comic tidbits to be cherished. The monsters seem to change size at will, the makeup never smears in the tropic heat, and the 40s hairdos a tad stylish for the military, the amazing plane restoration with no parts or tools, no one seems to eat anything, the South Pacific island looks suspiciously like your local park............ I could go on and on, but wait there is one more thing, the lead actor looks like he could take 6th place in a Bill Paxton look-alike contest. Maybe I better end it here before I keel over laughing. - MERK