Review for Airwolf: The Movie

Introduction

Strap yourselves in for another thousand words or so of nostalgia, rose tinted glasses, and egregious use of the phrase, "when I were a lad", as I take another look back at my favourite decade, the eighties. Once again it boils down to those TV shows that I inexplicably loved when I was a boy, the ones that pitted man and machine against adversity. Now, with 20-odd years of sense and realism knocked into me by life experience, I can barely understand why it was so, but when I had yet to hit my teens, shows like Knight Rider and Street Hawk were essential viewing. I also loved helicopters with big guns, and have spent more money on Apache Gunship games in my life than was probably advisable. When it came to TV, there were two shows to choose from, Blue Thunder and Airwolf. I preferred Blue Thunder because the helicopter looked like a flying weapons platform, while Airwolf looked like a Sikorsky with some bits stuck on. Still, I watched both shows religiously for a while, and Airwolf provided more bang for its buck, with a good proportion of Cold War jitters in its back-story that really appealed to me.


Of course the love for this kind of show was universal in my peer group, and the teachers in our school knew that. Which is why, when a games period was rained out, the PE teachers went and got Blue Thunder: The Movie out on video, knowing that we young men appreciated the TV series that was showing at the time. There was a little head scratching at Roy Scheider and Daniel Stern instead of James Farentino and Dana Carvey, but that was nothing compared to the reaction that a classroom full of hormonal teen males gave when the naked yoga scene came on. That weekend in my local video shop, looking for something to rent, I spied a copy of Airwolf: The Movie. It was rated 18. A movie of the kids TV show that I watched every weekend, rated 18. What wonders would lie within? I decided then and there that I had to see it, only I couldn't, being an upstanding law abiding citizen and all. By the time I actually was old enough to rent it, my interest in Airwolf had waned, and I forgot all about it. But now, Fabulous Films bring the 18 rated Airwolf: The Movie to DVD, and I can finally see what all the fuss was about.


Michael Coldsmith Briggs III a.k.a. Archangel of the Firm is showing off the CIA's latest weapon to an influential senator. Airwolf is a sleek new attack helicopter, capable of flying faster than the speed of sound, equipped with 14 weapons systems, and designed to penetrate and defeat the best in Soviet defences. It's been designed, and is piloted by Dr Charles Moffet, and certainly impresses as it goes through its paces. That's until Moffet turns on the observers and launches his weaponry into the building, before stealing the helicopter. Three months later, Archangel is knocking on the door of Stringfellow Hawke, the only other man to pilot Airwolf, to ask him to steal it back. Moffet has taken it to Libya, where he's using the helicopter to extend Kadaffi's influence in the region. When he sinks a US destroyer, it nudges the situation to the brink of World War III. Archangel will pay a million dollars if Hawke will sneak into Libya and steal it back. But Hawke doesn't want money; he wants his brother St. John, who's been missing in action in Vietnam. It's a good thing that Archangel has brought the beautiful Gabrielle, to sweeten the deal.

The Disc

The 4:3 regular transfer comes from a rather aged video source, of the sort typical of US TV broadcasts in the eighties. It's soft, it's grainy, and darker scenes are indistinct. You can also see added signs of age in the copious stock footage used in the show. Audio comes in DD 2.0 English, which sounds pretty mono to my ears. Airwolf: The Movie comes out on Blu-ray on the same day. If the Blu-ray uses the same source material as the DVD, it's going to be a hell of a disappointment.

Extras

Airwolf gets some nice animated menus, but the only extras are some production stills and publicity shots in an image gallery. They are taken from the entire series, rather than just the film, but there are over a hundred images, so that should keep you busy for a while.

Conclusion

As an anime fan, there's a process I am familiar with, called 'fifteening'. Back in the nineties, when anime came to the UK, Manga Video were the bad boys of home entertainment, making their name on edgy and provocative animation. The trouble was, that not every show they acquired was edgy and provocative in the original Japanese. So it was when they came to dubbing it into English, rather than translating the dialogue closely, they threw in as much profanity as possible, to ensure that the BBFC would give it a high rating. Airwolf: The Movie has been fifteened. They took the original pilot episodes, edited out the material that didn't contribute to the main story (basically much of the back story, and the events that would pay off later in the series), then went back and applied ADR to several scenes, altering dialogue to add in profanity, usually when the character is looking away from camera. So what we have here is the cut down version of the series pilot, already available on DVD, but with added effing and blinding. In other words, it's a con. It's worth noting that Fabulous Films haven't opted to get Airwolf: The Movie re-evaluated by the BBFC. Since it was last rated, we've had the advent of the 12 rating in the UK, and a general relaxation on what can and can't be shown to impressionable young minds. It turns out that one, or maybe two uses of strong profanity are acceptable at 12. I'm sure that if Airwolf: The Movie was now re-rated it wouldn't even task a 15 rating, and may even get away with a 12 (which coincidentally is the rating applied to the profanity free version of the pilot).


It also turns out that I have outgrown Airwolf. I used to love the helicopter, even if it looked like something that should be ferrying oilrig workers. Especially as blowing stuff up was cool, almost as cool as I found the character of Archangel, and the various female assistants he had hanging off his arm during the series. Dominic Santini as played by Ernest Borgnine was the heart of the show, or rather the personality of the show, while I didn't even mind the Caitlin character that showed up later on. With all the tech wizardry, the special effects, and the copious destruction of various Migs week in and week out, I really didn't notice that the helicopter had more screen presence than Jan-Michael Vincent. Watching the film now, I have to ask whether there is more wood in the lead actor, than the cello he plays. I'm also reminded that in the era of dodgy character names, like Michael Knight, and Jesse Mach, Stringfellow Hawke has to be the most ridiculous. After all, a man plays cello to an eagle on a dock outside his mountain cabin. What else would you call him but Stringfellow Hawke?


But all of that cheesiness is just what I loved about eighties action TV, where the car/bike/helicopter was the star, and the driver/rider/pilot was just the supporting cast. What kills Airwolf the Movie is that by cutting out the extraneous elements from the broadcast pilot episodes, they've created a film that is horrendously imbalanced. It starts off strongly enough, introducing the characters, building the story, and it takes its time about it as well, so you get to see just what a tortured character Hawke is supposed to be, what a fun loving guy Santini is, and what an utter villain and cad Moffet is. David Hemmings' performance as the deliciously slimy Moffet is easily the highlight of the film. We also get a fair amount of time developing the relationship between Hawke and Gabrielle. It's just when it gets down to the action meat of the story, by the time the characters get to Libya and set about stealing the helicopter, we see that there's only ten minutes left to the film. So we get a random combat montage over the desert, set to that iconic theme tune, but with absolutely no continuity whatsoever. Then the villain meets an end so ignominious and unsatisfying that you wonder why they even bothered, before the helicopter flies off into the sunset and the end credits roll. It's an afterthought, as if the editors looked at the clock, saw the pub was about to close, then quickly threw something together and buggered off.


Watching this film has made me grateful for one thing, that I didn't waste time and money, trying to pretend to be 18 just to rent the video way back when. That would have been too embarrassing. You should avoid this DVD as well, especially as Season 1 of Airwolf is available for less than ten pounds in some quarters, you get both the complete pilot episodes, without the overdubbed Tourettes, and you get another 10 or so episodes in addition.