Fridae

With a title like Flyboys, the film is bound to at least attract a sizeable crowd of curious gay men with nothing to do on the weekends. But while they may not be disappointed by the eye candy on display (James Franco � hot, Martin Henderson � doable, Philip Winchester � sizzling), they certainly wouldn't mistake this for a great film.

James Franco leads the cast of handsome young men who are recruited into the Lafayette Escadrille, a French squadron of pilots who fought during World War I. Interestingly, the squadron was actually made up of hundreds of American volunteers. (Hence the preponderance of American actors.) Among them are an arrogant Texan (James), a troubled rich kid (Tyler Labine) and a black boxer (Abdul Salis).

But while the film boasts impressive air battles and plane stunts, Flyboys is really quite unoriginal and old-fashioned � not to mention, looong. Coming in at 2 hours 20 minutes, director Tony Bill wastes a lot of frames trying to depict the personal dramas of each of his lead characters. In effect, Flyboys becomes a lot more interesting in the air than it is on the ground. You keep wishing the boys would stop wallowing and start flying.

If you enjoy aerial derring-do, you should catch this. But if you want something more from your movie besides computer-generated action sequences, then skip it.