1927 silent epic 'Wings' still enthralls

Anyone interested in how far we've come with motion-picture special effects — and not always for the better — may want to take note of the timely releases of "Red Tails" and "Wings" within just a few days of each other.

"Red Tails," a new film in theaters now, is a big World War II action flick from producer George Lucas — yes, that George Lucas — about African-American combat pilots during World War II, the largely unsung heroes of the Tuskegee Airmen.

"Wings," making its DVD/Blu-ray debut (it's about time), is an ambitious 1927 silent epic about American combat fliers in World War I, the first movie to tackle this airborne subject and the winner of the first Academy Award for best picture.

Though based on historical facts, both pictures are fictional; both are ultra melodramatic, embracing a lot of wartime-movie cliches; and both are at their best when they are in the air.

Of course, "Wings" has an excuse for embracing its tropes. In 1927, they weren't yet overused cliches — and a case could be made that this film helped establish them. The character interactions in "Red Tails" play like an old John Wayne wartime picture, probably not the best selling point in 2012.

Also, when "Wings" is in the air, it's really in the air. While "Red Tails" relies on whiz-bang digitally animated enhancement (the planes sometimes move like "Star Wars" TIE fighters), the aircraft in "Wings" aren't faking it.

What you see are real biplanes, dozens of them, circling through the clouds and actually engaging one another. No miniatures, no paintings and no rear-projection, as would become the standard a few years later. This is the real deal.

Those who are blindly enamored of computer graphics imagery and the modern cartoony look that so many movies take on today may ask, so what?

Most young people raised on CGI don't know the difference when they see massive numbers of soldiers in, say, "300" — those background dots created on a computer screen, along with some of the land mass. They should take a look at "Spartacus," for example — the 1960 film, not the current cable TV show — and note that every crowd scene really is made up of flesh-and-blood human beings on a real, massive landscape.

When they said "with a cast of thousands," they meant it.

To compare the airborne skirmishes in "Red Tails" with those in "Wings" is to be blown away — by the 85-year-old silent epic.