Fire Birds

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source: Fire Birds

Trailer—Fire Birds

Fire Birds

The fact of the matter is that this film is so bad, it actually has merit as a comedy. The film has a slick arrogance to it, and top-flight stars in Nicholas Cage, Tommy Lee Jones, and Sean Young. It's got characters in it named "Breaker" (laugh), a lot of macho, cool-guy tech-talk about helicopters (guffaw), and Cage gives just possibly one of the absolutely worst performances ever, spouting inane dialogue like he actually means it (howl). Somehow, the cast manages to take their mission seriously, which must rank up there with the miracles at Lourdes. How Tommy Lee Jones performs his role as the 40-year-old flight instructor who wants to get back into action with the 20something young Turks--against the advice of the commanding officer, of course--we'll never know. He's just a professional, we can only assume. But as I said, the movie compels because it's so darn awful. I chuckled out loud several times. Sometimes, watching a train wreck--and a glossy one at that--can be mesmerizing.

from the description on the back cover of the DVD, you think that you are going to be watching an exciting action movie about the war with the drug cartels, WRONG. This movie is all about the boring and tedious training that the apache chopper pilots have to endure, it is so completely uninteresting that you almost have to fast forward parts just so your brain has something mildly interesting to do. The romance in the story is a joke, the girl is a stinker, a terrible actor and the whole basis of the romance is a joke. I was so terribly dissatisfied with this movie that I had to write this review to warn others. IT IS TERRIBLE

Like a lot of other IMDBers - this was the first Nick Cage (an A++++ class actor) film I saw - and really put me off him for a long time - until I saw FACE/OFF.... on checking out the rest of his films I became a Cage groupie and came to the conclusion this was just a lame steer in a whole batch of great films (check out 'Kiss of Death' for an underestimated film!) Well, like dental surgery it was painful but thankfully over quickly - small mercies. IMDB does not provide a score low enough for this film - so it gets a 1. To get over it I watched MANOS - The Hands of fate.....

The first tip that you're in for a stinker is the generic use of the term "South America" without naming a specific country (kind of like talking about "Asia" or "Europe" or "Africa" in the same way). Then there is Nic Cage as helicopter pilot par excellence Preston telling the Joint Chiefs that the drug cartel is "killing Americans every day." When Tommy Lee Jones shows up for a totally obnoxious performance -- and certainly when the utterly disposable Sean Young appears just minutes later -- you realize you're watching one of the biggest turkeys ever put on celluloid. The only thing that saves this from being a "1" -- barely -- is the fact that there are marquee stars in this, and the extra point is for marveling at what kind of morons these stars must have for agents.

In 1983, Blue Thunder came out, being one of the first movies with decent helicopter dogfights in it. Later Airwolf came out really whetting my appetite for more chopper action. After Topgun came out, I just knew that hollywood would treat us with a big budget helicopter flick. 1990---WTF?? This had to be the cheesiest military flick put out!! With a cast like Tommy Lee Jones and Nicholas Cage, I knew that this movie had to be good... NOT!!! Oh well, I guess I will have to settle for Blue Thunder and Airwolf reruns.

I must admit, I busted a gut several times during this crap-fest... how these top-notch actors were directed into this mess is still beyond me... the four-star IMDb rating is insane I wish more comedies gave me the giggles like this one Nicolas Cage and Tommy Lee Jones struggle to look serious against writing that is shoddy and painful to hear... I really am only writing this review because this is, in my opinion the worst big-budget movie of our time... I think it would have made a great MST3K target This actually spawned a really bad TV show, too! That gives it extra credit Should have starred Dolph Lungren and The Rock