Man oh man, we've got everything. Action, suspense, Forbidden Love, Terror, giant airships and propaganda revolving around the world's most famous evil empire.
So why does this suck!
Or to be more fair; Why is this so mediocre?
Well to put it simply I don't think anybody's really trying.
At least when it comes to the acting.
The screenplay is okay, it's based off of a novel of the same name which admittedly is also not that captivating*.
And the prompt designs are really good.
They have reference material for the inside of the Hindenburg and they rebuild a lot of that. The restaurant looks exactly the same as the real life photos and the special effects for the Hindenburg blimp are decent enough.
But all the performances just feel mediocre or even wooden.
We have George C Scott who is supposed to be our protagonist. A pilot who's being assigned to discover the whereabouts of a possible bomb on the Hindenburg.
He's technically okay but it does just feel like a paycheck job.
And everybody else is either teetering between crumbling disinterest or corny and over-the-top. And I think a lot of that has to do with the movie revolves around a Nazi blimp.
The Nazis are for good or for ill our natural backdrop. And this movie doesn't want to play with any of that.
The film doesn't want to show them as being courageous or captivating lest they be accused of being sympathizers.
But it also doesn't lean into spoof territory either.
It's just stuck in the middle with a culture of people who are naturally over the top.
Like, the Nazis are insane. And they made a lot of their populace insane alongside with them.
There's potential for cinematic Intrigue there.
Also every character we're supposed to like has a secret hatred for the Nazi Empire and it just feels like post-war Allied propaganda trying to convince us (the viewer) that Nazis really are bad.
Like we need to be reminded of that.
I know you don't want our protagonist to side with the bad guy, but if that's the case maybe you shouldn't base the movie on the freaking Hindenburg!
Honestly this whole film would have benefited from being completely fantasy.
You can set it 20 years in the past and make up your own zany blimp. It could be a movie revolving around Victorian England or France.
Or heck, even the Germans with Kaiser Wilhelm and his Prussian Centric Germany.
Then you can have more fun with your characters. You can even show them in a positive light if you want to.
Because you're not dealing with the stigma of the world's most horrific regime.
Maybe the film could have just focused on one aspect of the story, like the search for the bomb or even the idea that there is no bomb in the whole thing's a hoax.
Or you can go in the other direction and have it be a romance that just happens to have a disaster at the end.
The Titanic movie kind of went in that direction, by perceiving that the romance was the center of the movie, even when it really wasn't.
But that little bit of humanity, that sense of connection between some of our main characters helped to bring out the environment of that film.
Something that is just needed more here.
Now with everything above said the Hindenburg movie is not horrible. It's tolerable at best and a little frustrating as you can see the potential of what can be done here.
You have an interesting setting, you have good characters, you have actual history and actual people with enough basic knowledge from the general population to make a spectacle of a film.
But it just falls short.
Much like the Hindenburg trying to land.
The poster is freaking cool. I'll give him that. It's the real reason I watch this film in the first place.
Oh the summary of the story. Stupid blimp built by wannabe Prussians explodes over American soil because of a combined incompetence of fascism and capitalism.
Some would argue what's the difference...
Ha!! (lazy)satire!
*I read about half the novel. It revolves almost exclusively around the crew who actually managed the Hindenburg blimp. Said Blimp has not taken off the ground yet and I'm halfway through the novel! Part of me wants to pick it up again.
Part of me doesn't want to trek throw all the previous information to try and get my bearings back.
Also the Hindenburg crew doesn't play that big of a role in the movie.
Kind of a shame, could have made a good movie out of that too. Actually that probably would have made for a halfway decent TV show ''Adventures of the Hindenburg! (pre-disaster.. Duh).
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