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Iron Eagle

Iron Eagle

List Price: $9.95
Your Price: $9.95
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent 80s Tribute Film
Review: "Iron Eagle" is best described as your typical 1980s, feel-good, pro-American, rock and roll action movie. Required viewing material for those of us still on the 80s hype. While completely unrealistic, anyone who ever grew up in the Reagan-era has to love this film and its simple premise. "Iron Eagle" has everything the 80s fanatic could want: a soundtrack including Adrenalin (Road of The Gypsy), Eric Martin (Eyes of The World), Dio (Hide In The Rainbow), Twisted Sister (We're Not Gonna Take It), and Queen (One Vision); a heavy, pro-American slant; and how could we forget, actors like David Suchet and Louis Gossett. While not up to the same high-budget par as its contemporary, "Top Gun", this is still a great film. Your plot is simple: imaginary Mediterranean rouge state shoots down one of our pilots, and in return, two American rouge pilots steal F-16Bs and bomb the living daylights out of the enemy. It's a great movie to watch as a "I remember when" type of film, especially since "Iron Eagle" has all the undertones of the perpetual international crisis faced by the US during the time period.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent 80s Tribute Film
Review: "Iron Eagle" is best described as your typical 1980s, feel-good, pro-American, rock and roll action movie. Required viewing material for those of us still on the 80s hype. While completely unrealistic, anyone who ever grew up in the Reagan-era has to love this film and its simple premise. "Iron Eagle" has everything the 80s fanatic could want: a soundtrack including Adrenalin (Road of The Gypsy), Eric Martin (Eyes of The World), Dio (Hide In The Rainbow), Twisted Sister (We're Not Gonna Take It), and Queen (One Vision); a heavy, pro-American slant; and how could we forget, actors like David Suchet and Louis Gossett. While not up to the same high-budget par as its contemporary, "Top Gun", this is still a great film. Your plot is simple: imaginary Mediterranean rouge state shoots down one of our pilots, and in return, two American rouge pilots steal F-16Bs and bomb the living daylights out of the enemy. It's a great movie to watch as a "I remember when" type of film, especially since "Iron Eagle" has all the undertones of the perpetual international crisis faced by the US during the time period.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Don't take it too seriously
Review: A comparison with Top Gun is perhaps a bit obvious, but it's soooo similar it hurts. Tons of cold war era political incorrectness, a storming soundtrack, action by the bucketload, and a totally cheesy and predictable plot.

Who cares about the bad bits, and who says everything you see has to be believable? Just enjoy it for what it is

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I can't suspend by belief THAT much!
Review: A group of teenagers outsmart the US airforce and steal a jet to save a terminally stupid POW papa. Really. Stock airforce footage galore! Mediocre acting! No script! Lots of hairgel! Why am I watching this again? However, it is good for a (unintentional) laugh. Lines like "Get out of your flightsuit!" can make for a lively evening.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Just Plain Silly
Review: Ahh, "Iron Eagle". A classic of the 1980's Golan-Globus production mill. With the current spate of historic/"current" military movies, it's sometimes good to see how Hollywood's come in trying to get the details right. One can't do much better than using this flick as a baseline. In case you aren't already familiar with this gem, Louis Gosset Jr. playing a reserve Air Force Colonel, and a teenage kid fly a mission inside an unnamed Arab country -OK I'll name it: Libya- to rescue the kid's dad. Pop gets shot-down when he's intercepted in international waters, but the US refuses to do anything more than diplomatic pressure.

The kid and Lou Gosset meet up when the kid's challenged to race the local bully with his PLANE while the bully's using his dirt bike. Suffice it to say he wins and impresses his babe; he doesn't get his slot at the USAF Academy, though. You gotta take the bad with good I guess. When the words on Dad get back to the family, this kid uses his base "network" to get access to imagery, enemy air defense data, and two F16s carrying a B52's worth of ordinance. All of this being done by his friends exploiting the dim bulbs who are their parents, no less. (If only strike planning was this easy.) Of course, the kid has flown training missions with his dad, and has a boatload of simulator time, so he's a natural to fly the mission. He convinces Gosset to go along with him, and his two-ship is on the way. The flying scenes are nothing spectacular, with obviously Israeli F16s playing the good guys, and Kfirs (modified Mirages) acting as MiGs. Cockpit scenes are completely the imagination of the set designer; I'm guessing he never was anywhere near a real aircraft. These are especially dated now as many computer flight sims are pretty darn accurate in cockpit, flight, and combat models. Anyway, lots of explosions on the way in, Lou gets hit and aborts and our hero must press on alone-go figure. He manages to talk with the evil dictator directly and get his dad on the runway for him to land (!) and pick him up. More silliness ensues as he launches weapons on the ground, taxi's out and takesoff. He kills the bad guy and heads home to find Lou punched out and was rescued. Rather than the prison sentence for espionage, and theft of government property that Lou, the kid, his pals and the idiots they exploited on base should've got, he gets his slot at the Air Force Academy. The end.

Overall, I guess Lou's performance was fairly good, but everyone else performed at the grade-B level this flick is. Note especially a very young Shawnee Smith as one of the kid's buds. Worth seeing for laughs, and as a film version of a kid's pilot fantasy.


Rating: 3 stars
Summary: I WANT to hate this movie...
Review: But how can I, a child of the 80's, hate this ultimate 'boys movie'?

At the time, it made me want to strap myself into the cockpit of an F-16 and go bomb some terrorist country. I found Libya on the map. They seemed like some onery folk at the time. I was ready to drop some hellfire on them 'camel jockeys'.

But I could never get a hold of an F-16.

But judging by some of the reviews here, some lucky peepsqueaks DID manage to get F-16's. So many youths cite this piece of dreck as the reason they joined the airforce and are now doing the will of a commander-in-chief who probably goes back to his ranch, closes the door, and puts the 'Iron Eagle' DVD on!!

Ultimate boys movie indeed.

This doesn't change the fact that 'Iron Eagle' is unabashedly racist. It was mostly filmed in Israel with the IDF and Israeli government providing all the fighter jets AND pilots along with the scenery. All they asked for in return was that the villains be (nameless, faceless, dehumanized) 'Arabs' from a fictional (generic) Arab 'terrorist country'. This demonization of an entire people was (and is) an Israeli government PR campaign to get the American public to see the 'plight of the Jewish people' as they 'struggle' against the 'evil Arab terrorists'.

I would hope the producers of 'Iron Eagle' were duped into going along with this. Because other than that, it is a pretty fine movie. Unlike a lot of 80's action-movie dreck, 'Iron Eagle' actually has likeable characters. Louis Gosset Jr. delivers a fine performance as the 'tough but fair' Colonel 'Chappy' Sinclaire. The action sequences rival and sometimes better the ones in 'Top Gun'. Plus, there is no sappy romance sub-plot to drag this puppy down. This movie is purely a boys film.

So if you can turn your brain (and your conscience) off for an hour and 20 minutes, get a hold of 'Iron Eagle'. But watch out for the sequels. They're bad. Really bad.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: This movie is worth watching.
Review: I am a US Air Force Academy Cadet, and one of the reasons I am here is that I saw this movie when I was a kid. It isn't a very accurate depiction of the Air Force, but it embodies the love of flight, doing what you know must be done, and the ideal of fighting for what you believe in. It is inspiring no matter who you are or how old you are.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Iron Eagle
Review: I checked the ... DVD special list to see what refuse the movie studios are trying to unload.

My suspicions were affirmed with the listing of this title -- Iron Eagle. ... How many of us were inspired to eventually pilot a tie-fighter or x-wing after watching Star Wars? And, anyone removed from the experience of working in the REAL U.S. Air Force can forgive the gross oversight and disregard for detail that this film shames upon the U.S. armed forces. We all must overlook the details in most movies.

However, this inane and unplausible plot is not saved by the thrill of a boy hopping in a slick military plane and the ensuing "save the world" 8-year-old fantasy. The storyline would make much more sense if the hero/child Doug Masters actually were a 5-year-old boy who wandered away from his nanny and happened upon an Air Force jet. Then, the film could be enjoyed for its ridiculousness.

The memory of seeing repeated glimpses of this movie repeated on HBO 18 years ago reminds me of how well this film captured the "Worst Movie Ever" in my book. There are worse movies out there, but this one is insidiously hyped up enough to make a fool out of you too to ever actually watch it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I am shamed that fellow humans gave this movie 5 stars
Review: I checked the ... DVD special list to see what refuse the movie studios are trying to unload.

My suspicions were affirmed with the listing of this title -- Iron Eagle. ... How many of us were inspired to eventually pilot a tie-fighter or x-wing after watching Star Wars? And, anyone removed from the experience of working in the REAL U.S. Air Force can forgive the gross oversight and disregard for detail that this film shames upon the U.S. armed forces. We all must overlook the details in most movies.

However, this inane and unplausible plot is not saved by the thrill of a boy hopping in a slick military plane and the ensuing "save the world" 8-year-old fantasy. The storyline would make much more sense if the hero/child Doug Masters actually were a 5-year-old boy who wandered away from his nanny and happened upon an Air Force jet. Then, the film could be enjoyed for its ridiculousness.

The memory of seeing repeated glimpses of this movie repeated on HBO 18 years ago reminds me of how well this film captured the "Worst Movie Ever" in my book. There are worse movies out there, but this one is insidiously hyped up enough to make a fool out of you too to ever actually watch it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This movie Rules
Review: I don't know what those other movie veiwers are talking about wiht there low ratings. It may not be totally realsitic but is any movie. Come on if things have to be that real then don't bother even watching movies. This is a classic and one of Louis Goset JR. best. If you an't apreciate a movie like this then I feel sorry for you.


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