I love this movie so much

An action-packed slog

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

This little film doesn't ask to be taken seriously, so when someone says this is full of bad acting, they're kind of missing the point. It is a gorgeous-looking film with a campy, clumsy little story. The acting is all overblown -- they all know they are hamming it up, which fits perfectly with the rest of the film. In terms of the story-telling, as short as it is, it has long stretches of exposition -- the voice-over just telling us the story. Telling, not showing, is the cardinal sin of narrative art for the last hundred and some years, but I personally don't get worked up over it. I don't need to be "shown" a lot of "concrete details" so I can be "immersed" in a story. Yes, I like being immersed, but I'm fine just gawking at gorgeous visuals while the director and actors goof around with a piece of fluff story line. So, if you want to watch this little film, accept that it is kind of goofy by current standards of narrative art, and try not to judge it for that. You can just enjoy it for what it is, if you want. It's basically just a little short about a steam-punk air battle, and it's meant to be humorous.

Being a crowd funded amateur movie goes only so far as to excuse the really amateurish bad acting of "Airlords". On the other hand it gives you some very nice steam punk buildings and most of all air ships, a few other interesting vehicles (although they are not necessarily related to the plot and were clearly put into this short movie just to show them off - well, I don't mind). It also contains some small good jokes which albeit may be funny mostly for German viewers recognizing the historical allusions. So, watch it for the CGI if you are a fan, but don't expect anything from the acting itself. A word of caution: Some people might object to the rather casual depiction of violence especially of quite a few unpleasant ways to die. It may be said this comes with a story like "Airlords'". But actually its disturbing quality follows from being part of a movie that is to be watched mainly because of its nice animation. Therefore the "realist" argument does not cover the actual execution of the fighting scenes in the movie.