The word I'd heard about this high flying
Korean aerial dog fighting epic 'R2B: Return to Base' was that
it was aiming to be the Korean version of 'Top Gun'. I
mean you have hot F-15 fighter jets to work with, a popular
handsome star in Rain, pop music in the background, beautiful
people off to the side and I know full well that the Goose
equivalent is gonna die. I know this, I just gotta
figure which one of the characters drew that short straw. But
after watching 'R2B' it really wasn't Korean 'Top Gun' but
probably closer in theme to being Korean 'Stealth'. So
considering we really didn't need an American version of
'Stealth'… take that as you will.
Capt. Tae-Hun (Rain) is a hotshot pilot for the Korean version
of the Blue Angels and clearly this outfit has a crap process
of picking pilots to be in their unit. After performing
some cockamamie stunt, putting his life, the planes life, and
quite honestly the life of everybody at the air show at risk,
Tae-Hun is booted out of the squad. No worries because
apparently the Korean air force needs reckless, dangerous,
insubordinate pilots and now Tae-Hun has been reunited with
his old friends Major Park (Sung-Su Kim) and Major Oh (Ha-Na
Lee), while currying the ire of uptight Major Lee (Jun-Sang
Yu) who hates hotshot, insubordinate and dangerous
pilots. We also get to meet young recruit Lt. Choi
(Suk-Won Jung) who mentioned to us that he was an orphan is
glad to have a family which does make him solid Goose
material, but then Majors Oh and Lee seem to be falling in
love with each other, helped by the fact Lee has an impossibly
cute little boy which means either one of them could be dead
meat as well. There is also a pretty mechanic Se-Young
who Tae-Hun is mercilessly stalking. Stalking women into
loving me has never worked personally, but it seems very
effective in movies.
The first twenty five or so minutes of this
bloated two hour movie is a lot of character type…
stuff. Buffoonery, endless dialog, nonsense. You
know. Then when get a quick shot of a North Korean
general putting a bullet in the head of some dude, and while
this segment is brief, but at least we know they did this for
a reason so we can hope that the character… stuff… can maybe
subside and some fun stuff is going to happen. The good
news is that eventually the fun stuff is going to happen but
that's a good hour down the line. Until then we have
more character… stuff… to suffer through.
All of the characters in this movie has a melodramatic issue
which has to be examined in full, which does make for kind of
a lousy action movie. The good thing about all of this
melodrama is that we were finally, and correctly able to pick
out Goose. Or Jamie Foxx if we're going to stick with
the 'Stealth' analogy.
Finally the action takes over when a crazed North Korean pilot
crosses the line in his MIG and starts wrecking just about
everything in South Korea. Unfortunately our South
Korean pilots haven't been given the order to fire because
they're over populated areas. Note that this isn't
stopping our bad guy pilot from dropping missiles and
stuff. Now I'm no Minister of Defense or anything, but
I'm thinking if we blow this guy out of the sky, the
collateral damage that might result is acceptable as it stops
the real damage that this is evil dude is currently
causing. Just my thoughts. Finally the pilots have
a shot, and they really want this dude dead because we've just
experienced a Goose moment, but they can't take the shot
because he's flown back over to the N. Korean side and we
don't want a declaration of war. Even though I think N.
Korea already declared war when that guy came over dropping
missiles on our buildings. But again, what the hell do I
know about the Rules of Engagement?
Now we have a situation. One of our potential Goose
candidates is trapped Behind Enemy Lines, the evil N. Korean
general has loaded an ICBM that he's about launch on the U.S.,
and the U.S. is meddling and won't let our heroes go rescue
the Behind the Enemy Lines guy. Like hell you say.
Our heroes will get their man back and they will avenge Korean
Goose. Excitement, in theory, shall ensue.
There are times… okay… most of the time in 'R2B: Return to
Base' where it is absolutely painful to watch. The
various melodrama's and relationship pursuits and buffoonery
just weren't working for me on any level. But it's not
that I didn't want to see this melodramatic mess… well maybe I
didn't… but even if I did want to see it, this part of the
movie was so poorly setup and slapdashed together that it was
hard to figure out who was what and what was who, and who
loves who, so even if I did want to get into the melodrama,
R2B's poor narrative construction wasn't helping me do
this.
That being said, the flight scenes and most of the special
effects associated with these sequences were nicely
realized. I'm sure 90% of this was CGI but the things
they can do with computers nowadays, I tell you. The
evil N. Korean angle was a little wacky, I mean you would
think Kim Jong Un and them would be bad enough, but the set of
bad guys they gave us are staging a coup to get rid of that
regime. That's pretty bad. I guess the producers
are placating the North Koreans in the unlikely event that R2B
plays in Pyongyang. Regardless of the wackiness, I
would've much rather they played up the enemy and played down
the melodrama as I'm sure it would've made for a much better
movie. We got nothing about the enemy other than we have
to be safe in the knowledge that North Koreans are apparently
crazy.
Basically, under the massive melodrama and inane dialog is a
good action movie desperately trying to get out from
under 'R2B: Return to Base'. It never got there, not
even close, but we could see it bubbling underneath. And
that makes us sad.
