Jay Maidment James Franco stars as an American flyer fighting for France in World War I in "Flyboys."

By John Hayes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A year before America entered the European conflagration that was then called The Great War, a small group of idealistic Americans volunteered to fight for France in exchange for flight training in a squadron called the Lafayette Escadrille. Most of them never came home. Those who did were America's first fighter-pilot heroes.

		'Flyboys' Starring: James Franco, Jean Reno. Director: Tony Bill. Rating: PG-13 for war action violence and some sexual content. Web site: www.flyboysthemovie.com/

That's a WWI history lesson. Director Tony Bill's tough job was to make the lesson seem palatable to the young audiences that pack movie theaters. With an acting and directorial history heavy on TV shows, Bill was probably a good choice. His bright and rather benign war movie stars a cute James Dean wannabe and includes a cuddly love story, dramatic action sequences and relatively tame war violence. "Flyboys" offers no philosophical messages that could possibly remind people of the daily news, and mostly, it doesn't seem like history class.

The movie opens with a little back story on the American adventurers, including James Franco ("Spider-Man") as an orphaned rancher who socks a foreclosing banker and opts to face the Germans over in Europe instead of the county judge. International culture shock and rivalries among the American pilots pale in the face of the shocking realities of war and the personal rivalries among German and Allied pilots.

Franco is perfectly cast as a cocky American top gun who falls in love with a cute French girl. Jean Reno ("The Da Vinci Code," "The Pink Panther") looks and acts stereotypically French as the French squadron leader -- probably because he is French -- but he's capable of much meatier roles. Jennifer Decker has some very credible moments as Franco's love interest, and Eugene Skinner plays it just right as the real-life son of a former slave who left American oppression, became a boxer in France and volunteered to fight for the country that treated him well.

Musical scores work best when they ease audiences into the desired emotional response without being noticed. This one drips all over you like movie popcorn butter. Script doctor David S. Ward, who wrote the screenplays for such classics as "Sleepless in Seattle" and "The Sting," was brought in to goose Blake T. Evans' story. Still, it's easy to want to compare "Flyboys" to far better films about war and, in particular, fighter pilots of The Great War.