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For fans of modern military aircraft, this movie is not to be missed. There are not too many movies showing Mirages in action, in this case the Mirage 2000C and 2000D. The plot is better than average, has some similarities with Top Gun and the end is a bit anti climatic. I rated Top Gun better for the plot, but Les Chevaliers du Ciel better for its flight scenes. And it is for the aircraft that you want to see this movie. The majority of the Top Gun scenes are shot from the ground, here the flight scenes are shot from a modified fuel tank mounted on the Mirage 2000 or the Alphajet. The flights look very unique and many images are sensational. In Top Gun, the adversary aircraft is either an A4 (as used by Top Gun then) or the Northrop F5 disguised as MIG29 (in real life they are very different beasts). Here, the adversary aircraft is a Mirage 2000 that was stolen by a terrorist organization. There are 2 scenes that are breathtaking and unique. One with a M2000 flying close and hiding under the belly of a Qatar Airways Airbus A340 in the opening section! And the other is a Mirage 2000D going supersonic (!) at very low level over the Djibouti desert. The Mirage are flown by French Air Force pilots, and you can see they make full advantage of the high roll rate of the delta wing design to change directions abruptly. Last, the movie has women pilots in the plot unlike Top Gun, although I disagree with choosing a woman in the role of a bad guy.
score 8/10
quoc 14 January 2006
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1269956/ |
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1-3-2021 12:06:07