Too much of everything

Nice effects though.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This movie depicts the facts of Amelia Earhart's fantastic life, her flights were nothing short of miraculous, for the times and the equipment available at the time. Not much is known about her private life, even though she had written books, those were about her flying experiences, where she had been and how it felt to fly. I disagree with one review that says that her private life was too matter of fact in the telling throughout the film, rather than making them events in and of themselves. It appears to me that Amelia wasn't forthcoming about her private life at the time, as a result, not much was known about her love life, relationships etc. certainly not enough to put into the film, if they had made it up it would have changed the designation to 'based on facts' not the bio pic it is. Putnam, the writer would or perhaps did write about his love for her, but his relationship with Amelia started out in a businesslike way and ended the same way, despite the reliance they had on each other. What stood out in this film was Amelia's first and only love -flying a plane to somewhere she had never been. The fact that Amelia was the first women to accomplish those personal goals was interesting and novel for that time period. The movie was successful in setting out Amelia's sense of adventure, courage, human spirit to excel and Amelia breaking boundaries by a woman, and in flight.

As a lover of vintage aircraft and aviation history, I enjoyed the movie for that reason alone. As far as I can tell, the movie pretty much held true to the known facts, for the most part. Some things were exaggerated, some understated, but basically factual, to the best of my knowledge. The vintage aircraft were amazingly beautiful. To me, anyway.For most people this will seem like nitpicking, but speaking of facts, the original description by jotix100 had an error in it. Gene Vidal was a director of NorthEAST Airlines, not NorthWEST Airlines (Col. Lewis H. Brittin was the founder of Northwest). In doing a Google search to find the source of that error, I found about an equal number of references to Vidal via-a-vis Northeast and Northwest. It's apparent to me that "somebody, somewhere, sometime" made a transcription error that got perpetuated. It seems misinformation usually travels faster than actual facts.

For all it's superficial glamour, I've often suspected that flying a plane, even in the days before auto-pilot, was actually quite dull, the equivalent of driving on an infinitely large, and almost empty and featureless road. Certainly, 'Amelia', the story of a famous pre-war pilot, does nothing to give a contrary impression. Aside from the innate tedium of its subject, the film also suffers from one of the most expository and wooden scripts I have heard (most of the text sounds as if recycled from the heroine's autobiography, and quite unlike dialogue); the absence of any dramatic tension (unless one believes that it's a human right for women to be able to fly), and the predictable casting of Hillary Swank (I have nothing against Swank per se - she can be very good, but it's an indictment of Hollywood that there are so few female stars available for roles not defined by physical beauty, so the few who exist tend to be over-used in a limited range of parts). The odd thing is that years ago, I remember being gripped by 'The Spirit of St. Louis', which told the story of Charles Lindburgh's epic transatlantic flight. But this film is about as interesting as flying cattle class.

A very standard biopic.While there is nothing horribly wrong with any of this movie (it IS better than its 37% metascore implies), nothing really comes to life in Amelia either. I wanted the subject matter to soar but it doesn't ... it is a rather typical, ho-hum story about someone who did something great.For some reason so many of these stories forget to tell us why the person the film is about was great. The film decides that showing Amelia get into a plane and fly should do the trick and please the masses; but I think that sells her short! The cinematography is lovely and there was gorgeous, sweeping scenery; but that isn't enough for me. Is it wrong to want a glimpse into the life of this legend? The relationships in the film are all cut-and-paste and were only emphasized when the story needed them to further a tangent. The movie felt hollow and incomplete. Earhart is (again) a legend that deserved more. Swank, though -- in my opinion -- does a fine job with the role so the fault should not lay at her feet (it's not her best work; but it wasn't the best-written role of hers either).Perhaps the filmmakers had lofty intentions and they just didn't measure up in the editing room. While Amelia isn't a total waste of time, I would assume reading a biography on the Kansas-born aviatrix would be more fulfilling.