Amelia (2009)

Starring Hillary Swank as Amelia Earhart and Richard Gere as her husband George Putnam, "Amelia" is on the boring side. How can this be when she is such an interesting and iconic figure? Most of the film dealt with her relationship with George and her affair with Gene Vidal, an aeronautics instructor and the father of the famed author Gore Vidal. She was way ahead of the game when it came to feminism. When she and George finally married, she made him promise that they would both be free to do what they wanted in their marriage and even had the word "obey" removed from their vows, which people didn't do in those days. The film begins as she approaches George Putnam to be the first woman to go across the Atlantic in a plane. She would not be the pilot, she would just be a passenger, she was not happy about this. She would later remedy this with a solo flight across the Atlantic at a later date. She was made to endorse products that she didn't believe in and hated it, seeing it as fraud. The best parts of the movie were of the shots when she was flying, whether it be above the clouds, or flying over parts of Africa and seeing the animals on the ground. The film ends while on her second try to fly around the world and couldn't locate Howland Island where she was to refuel and disappeared along with her navigator Fred Noonan on July 2, 1937.

I like Hillary Swank (great in "Million Dollar Baby" for which she won an Oscar) and thought that she did a good job in this movie. There just wasn't much to keep my attention.

Amelia received the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress for being the first woman to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic. It was mentioned that she felt that her wanderlust came from her father, but it was not mentioned that her mother was the first woman to summit Pike's Peak. Amelia also became friends with Eleanor Roosevelt.

There are several theories as to what happened to Ms. Earhart. The most popular theory being that she ran out of fuel and ended up in the ocean somewhere around Howland Island. Her radio was not working correctly and although the people on the island could hear her, she could not hear them and therefore could not locate the island. It was also thought that she had somehow gotten herself to Gardner Island as it has been suggested that radio signals came from there and signs of recent occupation were there even though the island was uninhabited. A skeleton was later found, but was thought to be that of a man. By the time that better tests were available, the bones were lost. One of the others was that she was actually alive and changed identities. This was not believed by most.

Rated PG. I give this movie TWO AND A HALF STARS.