Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Such a frustrating disappointment

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

it is a special movie. not great, not only touching, not pure good. but special. because it remains a not very known chapter from WW II. because it change the image about a country and a people. because it presents, in inspired manner, two sides of same story - heroism and oppression, the love and the absurd of history. it is impressive for its delicate way to suggest. for the virtue to be a testimony. fragile, delicate, not comfortable but wise expression to discover the truth behind the verdicts. a courageous movie about the courage. that seems be all. and, after decades, picture from Mitteleuropa out of clichés circle. maybe, a history lesson. or only a good script and inspired actors.

DARK BLUE WORLD (Tmavomodrý Svet) Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Hawk Scope)Sound format: Dolby Digital Surround EX1939: Two Czech fighter pilots (Ondrej Vetchý and Krystof Hádek) flee the Nazi occupation of their homeland and travel to England, where they join the RAF and are torn apart by their mutual love of a lonely young woman (Tara Fitzgerald).Despite its ravishing widescreen visuals and glorious aerial combat sequences, Jan Sverák's wartime melodrama is a little too restrained for its own good, even when the two main characters become divided by Vetchý's unethical behavior. Performances are solid, but Sverák's intimate direction works against the film's epic sweep, and the result is neither one thing or another. Hádek looks like a Bel Ami porn beauty, which is a huge plus, and Charles Dance makes a brief appearance in the role of a pompous RAF commander.(Czech, German and English dialogue)

I absolutely loved this movie. Great, realistic looking combat footage for one thing and a touching, genuine story also. The calm, understated manner of the lead character, Franta, makes him very likable. The human relationships in the story seemed so very typical and possible of what you could expect in war time. The bond between Franta and Carel shows the loyalty wartime comrades can have for each other and that is often described in books and interviews with veterans. The subtitles do not detract from the story at all and actually serve to underline the problems the Czech pilots had in the RAF. The postwar storyline is a great reminder that for many the suffering of WW2 did not end in 1945, especially in Russian occupied countries. The cinematography was also very good. Wish I could have seen it on the big screen.

I enjoyed Dark Blue World but felt there was a lot more we could have learned from this film. It's well acted and beautifully filmed. The air combat scenes are quite good. (Note: I am almost certain that a number of the large scale air combat scenes and some of the single aircraft scenes were cut straight from "The Battle of Britain.") I found the love story to be rather unconvincing. I think there was a lot more that could have been done to give you a better picture of what these guys went through. I mean, one minute two guys are riding a motorcycle down a road to flee from the German occupation. Then they immediately shift to England. It would have been a good part of the story to show what they went through to get there. (Spoiler)It also would have been very interesting to see how the transition to home, Soviet occupation, and ultimately prison camp worked out.So, this movie is very much worth seeing. But you may no learn as much about the experiences of the Czech fliers as you might want to.