WARBIRDS

 

My official UK DVD of Warbirds (© Kevin Gendreau/New Symphony Pictures/Clockwork Planet/Curmudgeon Films/Sci-Fi Channel/GEM Entertainment/Optimum Home – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial air Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

My film watch on 11 July 2023 was the wartime-themed monster movie Warbirds, which I'd owned on DVD for ages but had never previously got around to watching.

Directed (and co-written) by Kevin Gendreau, and released as a TV movie in 2008 by the Sci-Fi Channel, Warbirds is set in the closing weeks of WW2, when a team of American WASPs (Women's Airforce Service Pilots) is commissioned to transport via B-52 bomber plane some American soldiers on a top-secret mission carrying a highly classified cargo. However, they are forced to land on a tiny uncharted Pacific island when their survival is threatened by an immense storm. There they encounter three Japanese aviators, the last survivors of a company whose members have been killed by supposed 'dragons'.

Far from being mythical, however, these monsters swiftly reveal themselves to be giant pterosaur-like creatures (the movie's titular warbirds), albeit armed with toothy jaws and long tails that only the most primitive pterosaurs sported, according to the fossil record. They are also a fetching shade of royal blue; but as far as fetching is concerned, their sole intent is to fetch prey for themselves and their offspring, by swooping down upon the stranded humans and carrying them aloft.

Much tedious bickering ensues throughout the film between the three parties – the female pilots, the male American soldiers, and the male Japanese aviators – plus, in typical monster movie fashion, their numbers grow ever more depleted as, one by one, they are abducted or slaughtered by the pterosaurs.

The two American parties attempt to repair their bomber plane, assisted by the Japanese aviators – but these latter have wily plans, to steal and escape on it once repaired. By the time that the bomber has been rendered airborne (together with the Japanese's own downed Zeros to serve as its protective flankers) and free from a veritable phalanx of pursuing pterosaurs, however, the only survivors are two of the women pilots – and that is only because the bomber's top-secret cargo has been inadvertently jettisoned down onto the island, entirely obliterating it and all of its living flying fossils.

Yes indeed, the cargo was an atom bomb (one supposedly pre-dating the Hiroshima example), and which was planned to be dropped upon Japan in order to end the war – but you'd already guessed that. I know I had, from about 10 minutes into the movie.

The CGI pterosaurs are visually impressive, especially for a low-budget movie like this one, albeit equipped with the decidedly unrealistic ability to catch up with aircraft flying in excess of 300 mph! Conversely, the plot is entirely predictable, and I'm informed by those who are au fait with such matters that there are various military-themed errors present (not an area of expertise for me, however, so I'll have to take their word for it). Having said that, even I did wonder how and where the Japanese aviators had managed to obtain on this remote, uncharted, hitherto-uninhabited island a readily-identifiable US military truck, and why the atom bomb hadn't had its fuse removed for obvious safety reasons before being stowed aboard the bomber plane (yet it clearly hadn't, which is why it exploded over the island).

Also, the cast list includes no major names (Brian Krause of Charmed fame being the biggest, playing the American soldiers' terse, authoritarian leader, Colonel Jack Toller). Nevertheless, Warbirds makes entertaining if unchallenging viewing, or at least it did for me – an easy-going, popcorn & cryptozoology, creature-feature way to pass 85 minutes.

If you'd like to experience a very close feature-length encounter with the titular monsters of  Warbirds, please click here to view this entire movie free of charge on YouTube.

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.