Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

"The Red Baron" or "Der rote Baron" is a German movie from 7 years ago. It was basically the attempt to turn young German actor Matthias Schweighöfer into an international superstar. And it went all kinds of wrong. The first problem is that Schweighöfer simply does not have the talent for an international breakthrough. It#s already pathetic enough that he is so successful with his German films to this date. i wish German audiences would finally see the light that he has pretty much nothing to offer in terms of talent. It is pretty sad to see how he really wants it, but simply does not have the talent in this film here. However, his lack of ability is not the biggest problem of this 2-hour movie. It is the script. The writer and director is Nikolai Müllerschön and I have no clue why they lat him in charge here given his films before that were all mediocre at best, some even really bad and he made mostly television work. This was a project with international stars (Headey, Fiennes) and I truly wonder who greenlit Müllerschön as the man to make this happen. The dialogs are uninteresting most of the time, sometimes downright bad. The action is boring from start to finish and same goes for the flight sequences.I mentioned "The English Patient" in the title here and I can tell you why. Not only is there a Fiennes in this movie, but it also takes place during wartime and is about a man who meets a nurse (with a foreign accent) and falls in love with her while trying to juggle the professional aspects of his life. Of course, Schweighöfer has nothing on Ralph Fiennes and this film here is vastly inferior in all other areas to compared to the Best Picture Academy Award winner. Lets look at the supporting cast. Til Schweiger is in here as well and more lackluster than usual. Apart from that, he plays a man who is under 20 years old with Schweiger Himself being almost 50 in this film. Enough said. It is really a bad joke. Still I believe Schweiger is even at that point a more talented actor than Schweighöfer and he is certainly no Daniel Day-Lewis. The only ones I cannot blame are the many German and Czech supporting players and also Fiennes and Headey have basically no chance of saving this crappy film. Not recommended.

This movie couldn't be more inaccurate if it tried. An unrealistic, badly written waste if time.The facts of this mans life are easy to find out and are more interesting than the fantasy plot of this movie. If film makers are going to make a fictional film like this then why use a real man as a basis for it?If a film is to be based on a real person then please use facts. Se5a aircraft in 1916? A love interest when there is no documented evidence? Actors clearly in their 40's playing those in their 20's and Richtoffen shooting down Roy brown?Just a few of the long list of fail for this movie.

I have a couple of thoughts on this film both positive and negative.The positives first reason.WW1 has been largely forgotten or remembered as being in the far distant past with little relevance.We are but 2 years from the 100 anniversary of the start of that war and many issue of that day remain now and plague us still.Any thing to remind us of that terrible war and the little that it resolved, is sorely needed and should be seen. The positive second reason is anything about "The Red Baron"The only hero of a enemy this country celebrates thanks to the "Peanuts" comic strip character of Snoopy as the Red Baron and a Christmas song commemorating that. Now the negatives.First,Matthias Schweighöfer as Manfred von Richthofen don't have the gravitas to carry out such historical character.he's badly overshadowed in the scenes with Lena Headey as Käte Otersdorf and even Joseph Fiennes as Capt. Roy Brown who would have been a better choice to play the baron. Now considering this is a movie and NOT a documentary,its not really important if there was a real romance between Kate and Manfred.It's enough that they knew each other and a dog was there and a character named Doring which I assume is meant to be Goring,the future Nazi leader of the German airfare in WW11,who historically later replaced him and the fact he was killed in the last German offensive of the war,the "Michael".History is told by the winners and facts get "tweaked"all the time.I see no bad tweaks when compared to the facts of depicted of the terrible war. Just judging it on its merits,the old planes and dog fights are great.The few ground battle scenes are horrific and the illusion of gallantry in the air is maintained as if there were two separate wars being fought. Sadly the casting of Matthias Schweighöfer as Manfred von Richthofen is the major downer for me.

The movie's main problem is that it moves very slowly, with long scenes of exposition between the dogfights...The thing that got me worked up the most, when Roy Brown and Richtofen have a drink in No Man's Land, and Brown says "You should hook up with that nurse, she has the hots for you." So why is a Canadian in 1916 using 21st century American slang? Did the writers not know what the equivalent slang of that period would be, or did they just assume we wouldn't know what that means.Oh, yeah, and Brown and Richtofen having a friendly drink. Ironic because Brown would eventually kill Richtofen. Or not. (He was actually killed by ground fire, but I guess having a drink with an Aussie gunner wouldn't have the same effect.) Similarly, the story rewrites Richtofen as a humane pacifist who told his pilot to target planes, not pilots. In reality, he did the opposite, and his own high kill rate was due to his ability to kill pilots at long range as a sniper.Oh, and then the ultimate burn. WE DON'T SEE HIS FINAL DOGFIGHT!!!! I just dropped my rating to a four based on that!