The Times article describing this as a John Wayne flick aimed at teenage boys helped sway me towards excitement again. Now, this Post review more or less states what I thought might happen in terms of the critical pans everyone expected.

Lumenick's review:

"An inspiring, rousing tribute to the heroic, history-changing Tuskegee Airmen and World War II movies of the ’40s, “Red Tails’’ would probably be acclaimed as a minor masterpiece if it was directed by Quentin Tarantino.

But because so many blame its producer, George Lucas, for desecrating their childhoods with the “Star Wars’’ prequels (not an issue for me), you’re going to hear people dump on this, a passion project Lucas personally poured $60 million into after trying to sell it to Hollywood studios for 20 years.

Listen to the naysayers and you’ll be missing one of the best January-releases of the past 30 years, a well-acted, well-directed (by TV veteran Anthony Hemingway) popcorn movie with great aerial battles and solid dramatic scenes that hold your attention for two good hours.

Perhaps more importantly, it will leave you thirsting to read more about the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American pilots in the US Army.

Loosely inspired by their exploits, the film centers on a couple of archetypes, excellently played by a pair of little-known actors. Capt. Marty “Easy’’ Julian (Nate Parker) is a squadron commander who drinks to cope with the stress of making life-or-death decisions.

Easy’s best friend, Joe “Lightning’’ Little (David Oyelowo), is a showboating pilot with little use for rules or his pal’s commands, most excitingly deciding to wreak havoc on a Nazi battleship on the spur of the moment.

At a time when many white officers still believed blacks were “mentally inferior to the white man’’ (in the words of a 1925 Army War College study quoted at the outset), the Tuskegee Airmen are based far from enemy lines in Italy.

A bigoted Pentagon big shot (Bryan Cranston) continually tries to marginalize the Red Tails, so-called because of the distinctive markings on their planes.

But word of Lightning’s exploits finally enables the commander of the 332nd Fighter Group (Terrence Howard) to secure a plum assignment of escorting flying fortresses that have been suffering massive losses while on bombing runs. (Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. delivers his best and most subtle performance in years as the pipe-smoking second-in-command.)

The measure of the Red Tails’ historic accomplishment is beautifully illustrated by a later scene where Easy and Lightning are walking past a segregated officers’ club in Italy and a white officer calls out to them.

They fear a racially motivated attack, but it turns out the officer is a bomber pilot who wants to buy them a drink to celebrate their heroism — and the Red Tails end up being toasted inside the club by formerly hostile white airmen.

Heavier themes are handled with restraint in a film clearly aimed at the family trade — not making a big deal, for instance, of Lightning’s interracial romance with a beautiful Italian woman but allowing the audience to wonder what will happen if their plans to marry actually come true.

The other major subplot involves a young pilot named Ray “Junior’’ Gannon (Tristan Wilds) who Easy allows to fly a mission despite serious vision problems. When he’s forced to bail out, Junior becomes the first black prisoner at a POW camp where he demonstrates a different kind of heroism.

“Red Tails’’ isn’t a perfect movie. Some of the dialogue is awkward, especially early on (but it’s not like “Star Wars’’ prequels, which seem to have been translated into Sanskrit and then back into English).

And you’d think Lucas, the founder of Industrial Light and Magic, would have more state-of-the-art special effects than the sometimes cheesy ones on view here.
That said, “Red Tails’’ — a welcome change from Hollywood’s historic January dumping ground — is lot more fun to sit through than Steven Spielberg’s pretentious, self-important “War Horse.”"