3 stars
Many reviewers have dismissed Born to Fly, director and co-writer Liu Xiaoshi’s debut feature film, as a second-rate (or rip-off) of the 1986 Tom Cruise hit Top Gun. That’s unfair because while the two films share some similarities in plot and a passion for way too many boring aerial action scenes, Born to Fly isn’t filled with a cheesy soundtrack, embarrassing romantic moments, or any homoerotic volleyball games. And for that, it’s a better movie.
Born to Fly stars Wang Yibo (Hidden Blade) as a talented young air force test pilot who is part of a secret Chinese Air Force program to develop a stealth bomber. While the PR statements say the need for the new military hardware is to protect Chinese soldiers fighting on the land, the pressure to get it done as quickly as possible is to get back at the American flyboys that have been buzzing through Chinese airspace showing off in some kind of flyboy dick measuring contest. Sure, the film never actually identifies them as Americans. Still, they’re flying what any action movie fan can identify as a US stealth bomber, and the pilot’s response to being hailed as entering another country’s airspace is, “We go where we wanna go.” You don’t get much more American than that.
Most of Born to Fly follows the American action movie formula of films like this: lots of male bonding through exercise and skill tests, plenty of close misses and narrow escapes during the actual experimental plane tests, a heavy dollop of swagger, and enough testosterone swollen ego among the two best pilots to keep them at each other’s throats until they become best friends. Director Liu, however, shows a lot more restraint than Tony Scott did with Tom Cruise and company. Scott’s film was all style. Liu’s has substance.
And while the characters in the two films are radically different, the flying sequences in both Born to Fly and Top Gun are equally dull to sit through. No amount of aerial camera tricks and jacked-up soundtrack, with or without Kenny Loggins singing about the “Danger Zone,” can make the images come alive to the degree the filmmakers are trying to deliver. Having two pilots wink or wave at each other while traveling more than 600 miles an hour pulls the audience out even more. Cruise and his cohorts looked silly doing it in Top Gun 38 years ago, and the flyboys in Born to Fly aren’t any better.
