The Aviator Reviews
Common Sense Media
Good but not great, and not for younger kids.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Sacramento News & Review
It's all rather sprawling and a bit disjointed, but Scorsese's vigorous pacing and eye for detail hold it all together and provide a vivid setting for DiCaprio's masterful performance (his best work yet).
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Top CriticThis almost-great epic has one foot in legend: it's a vision of an American titan that could have sprung from the insides of Hughes's own obsessive, perfectionist head.
eFilmCritic.com
Scorsese's most engaged and engaging filmmaking in a while.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Christianity Today
It's almost predictable in the way it delivers the cinematic goods, yet there's no denying that it is a compelling and entertaining look at a larger-than-life individual.
| Original Score: 4/4
Cinema Writer
The Aviator feels like old-fashioned Hollywood with a bracing jolt of Scorsese's cinematic flair
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Despite a pacy, technically brilliant but otherwise slightly ordinary first half-hour or so, Scorsese's Howard Hughes movie is his best since The Age of Innocence.
Sydney Morning Herald
Scorsese gives us a lot more than the Charles Foster Kane of the clouds. He keeps focus on Hughes, the dreamer, who continually reached out, grabbed the future and pulled it toward him.
AV Club
It's a measure of The Aviator's complexity and ambiguity that it can be read equally as a celebration of rugged, capitalist individualism and as a leftist critique of cutthroat free-market competition.
Empire Magazine
Beneath the glossy surface there's a niggling lack of depth, but otherwise this is a grand, impressive Tinseltown drama.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
DVDTalk.com
The Aviator is more than entertaining and engrossing enough to keep you interested ... for at least 130 minutes or so.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Its primary appeal is its speed: It rushes along, from scandal to air crash to movie romance to Senate hearing, each anecdote well realized but never tarried over.
Movie Metropolis
Regardless of the fact that The Aviator may not be Scorsese's best work, it is unquestionably a creative piece of moviemaking.
Full Review
| Original Score: 7/10
3BlackChicks Review
If the folks who made Hollywood were going to make a movie today it would be made like The Aviator.
This undoubtedly is the movie Scorsese set out to make, and he made it exceedingly well. Still, we can fault him for choosing to celebrate its subject instead of examining him.
Cinema Sight
"The Aviator" is a triumph of filmmaking. It successfully blends technical artistry with A-class performances.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema
This is a thrilling picture that merges [Scorsese's] gritty style and his adoration of old-fashioned Hollywood. The production design alone makes the film a must-see.
Full Review
| Original Score: A
Kaplan vs. Kaplan
DiCaprio as Hughes is nothing short of captivating, and his performance here, easily the best of his career, is certain to land him an Academy Awards nomination.
