Mosquito Squadron
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Movie Reviews of Mosquito Squadron
Movie Review: Intriguing WWII story
Summary: 4 Stars
The movie may not earn high marks in special effects, but it isn't bad for the era. Some criticized the performances as "wooden", but I would say it's more a matter of being reserved. Aside from these criticisms, the overall story is well done.
Told from the British perspective, the primary story line is not too heavy on war (minimal ground combat and bloodshed). The few brief departures to the secondary story of a romance developing between the squadron leader and his best friend's widow are not distracting.
The Mosquito pilots are charged with taking out an underground facility located at Charlon in France. There, the Nazis' are completing their newest air assault weapon to be aimed at Britain. After information of the planned RAF attack is leaked through the capture of a member of the French Underground, the Nazis move RAF prisoners into Charlon Castle.
If the project is completed, Britain is placed in even greater danger by the Nazis. It is imperative that Charlon be destroyed regardless of the cost. The Mosquito pilots are faced not only with the risk of the mission itself; they must face the risk of killing their own colleagues held at Charlon.
Movie Review: Vic's reviews
Summary: 4 Stars
Good story line. A combination of tragedy with victory. The sudden attraction to each other by the lead actor and actress however is a little bit out of place.633 SquadronMovie Review: Not as good as I remember
Summary: 4 Stars
Hey, I was six years old and this was the best movie I had ever seen on the big screen. So at 43 my tastes have changed a bit and the movie, although still cool, was not as spectacular as I remember. I know I know, you can never go home again can you....Movie Review: Underrated war movie, but still good for all that
Summary: 3 Stars
This movie is not supposed to be a carbon copy of its highly successful predecessor, "633 Squadron", yet, to one's horror, one discovers that the opening footage of the V-1 launch, flight and ultimate destruction in a London street, has been lifted straight from "Operation Crossbow" - and I only discovered THAT years after watching this movie several times on television.
One can take proverbial potshots (like the Germans at the Mosquito bombers flying at zero feet) at David McCallum for what people have described as his wooden, deadpan portrayal of Squadron Leader Quint Monroe, who appears relatively unemotional when reporting the "death in action" of his previous commanding officer, "Scotty" (David Buck), to his superior officer.
However, that would be an unfair criticism of McCallum: it would be unrealistic if he were to portray Monroe in a way that suggested that he had to adopt a certain persona just to please the audience (or the studio people) by playing a given stereotype. RAF fighter pilots were, in the eyes of the public, supposed to be suave and debonair, yet, as this film and "Battle of Britain" prove, they were ordinary people doing extraordinarily stressful jobs in extraordinary times. Hence, their emotions should reflect the environment of the characters the actors portray.
The most convincing portrayal is that of Charles Gray as the air commodore who tells Monroe to "chuck a bomb" in a tunnel next to a commandered French chateau in order to destroy V-3s (as they were referred to) being constructed in an underground chamber. My favourite line in the movie was when Monroe gave his reaction to the difficulty of the mission at the briefing: "[It's] like spitting into an air commodore's eye from an express train, sir." People who watched "Crossbow" will remember that there was, indeed, a vast studio set resembling such a chamber, yet no such thing is seen in this movie, so, although there was no copying here, it is nevertheless a disappointment.
Having said that, perhaps the budget was somewhat tight, considering that it costs money to have preserved Mosquito bombers (or anything of WWII vintage) flying in movies, and so the cheapest solution for the scene, in which Monroe (McCallum) and Scotty's widow (Suzanne Neve) are in a car, is to have McCallum barely budge the steering wheel while Neve's hair is hardly ruffled while their car is in front of a screen showing a winding road probably filmed from the back of a lorry (one wonders if the camera actually fell off it!).
The most tension-filled scenes are the ones filmed in the chateau grounds where the priest, an intelligence agent, informs the RAF prisoners being used as human shields that Mosquitoes will conduct a bombing raid soon. The prisoners include the supposedly "dead" Scott, only Monroe knows he is alive because of a film "sent" by Luftwaffe fighters which shoot up the airfield (in this case, RAF Bovington) for good measure. Even so, he has orders to obey: destroy the rockets - even if it means that "Scotty" - and a great many fellow comrades - might be killed for real this time around.
Like practically all British war films of the 1960s, one can be sure that there will be certain elements: a romance that doesn't quite work well, a war mission with lots of people being killed, the mission finally succeeding and (with the exception of "633 Squadron", perhaps) most, if not all, of the heroes returning home. This film has all these elements, yet it has been knocked - perhaps unfairly - by many people for the so-called "wooden" acting. Nevertheless, it is entertaining and watchable, even if it isn't in the same league as "633 Squadron" and "Battle of Britain".
Movie Review: Wow! A great plane, a worthy target, and a painful sub-plot
Summary: 3 Stars
*spoiler warning*
The two-engine De Havilland Mosquito played multiple roles for the RAF during WWII. It was a night fighter and a fast, light-bomber. In this film a photo recon mission uncovers a Nazi secret weapons development site. RAF air marshalls order a squadron of Mosquitoes to carry out a precision bombing raid to take it out. To do this they have to drop a "bouncing bomb". This isn't a joke, these bombs were actually developed to do things like take out hydro-electric dams and do other special jobs. BTW - the story of the development of this type of bomb and its use against dams is depicted in the fine WWII film The Dam Busters. That film is really worth it.
In this film David McCallum (of TV's "The Man From Uncle" fame) leads a cast of RAF pilots tasked to take out the Nazi R&D site. The Nazis learn of this plan and bring in a large number of RAF POWs to act as a human shield. The squadron is ordered to move forward anyway.
OK, I am a sucker for WWII movies, especially aerial and naval films, so I went into this one with high hopes. There is some great footage of these WWII vintage planes being put through their paces. There is also some vintage footage of the bouncing bomb tests from WWII. That is all awesome. Some of the special effects are not that great, but that can be forgiven since this film was made 40 years ago. What is less forgivable is the painful acting that takes up most of the ground time in the film. McCallum's main dialog seems to be prolonged stares, and people seem to be able to read his mind?! The romantic sub-plot is OK, but adds little to the film's overall plot.
All in all this is a movie about great planes and a good mission, but with some really poor acting. So, to sum up, it was OK, and I don't think I'll be watching it again (unlike a similar era film that I watch a few times a year, Battle of Britain).
It was, like I said, OK. It's not bad, it's just not all that good. So, 3 stars.