I am a big fan of military dramas/movies and I really liked the Chinese military movie 'The Eight Hundred'. Hence, I felt that this movie would be worth a shot. WRONG!!! Although the idea of a movie centring around test pilots is novel and refreshing, the execution was below average.
The pace of the movie could be faster. There were many scenes that I felt were redundant or overly propagandistic and were of no help in moving the story forward. These redundant scenes only made the movie seem draggy and boring. 20 minutes into the movie and a man sitting a row behind me in the movie theatre was already snoring in his seat. I was also starting to get a little fidgety in my seat but decided to persevere thinking that the movie would get better. ANOTHER WRONG!!! The CGI in the movie was just giving me 2000s (or even earlier) Hollywood CGI vibes - looks fake and hilarious, especially when I had just watched Topgun Maverick so there was naturally some comparison going on in my brain. Okay, but the bad CGI was not as bad as how fake or unprofessional some scenes looked. There was a scene where a flock of birds crashed into the plane of the ML and Second ML. While the SML had to be stretchered down the plane looking battered, the ML walked out looking almost completely unscathed - no cuts, no bruises, nothing. There was also a scene where a metal pole stabbed through the ML's chest like a skewered kebab and borderline cookie-cuttered his chest. But in the next couple of scenes featuring the ML, the wound on his chest has completely healed, not even a scab.
1) The movie would have been more exciting if there were an antagonist or antagonists, rather than having some English-speaking faceless pilot as the 'enemy'.
2) The propaganda could be better incorporated into the movie plot
3) The CGI quality was not able to 'carry' the supposed high-tech and advanced air force scenes.