the leading man is my tpye

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Just when you thought there were no new rite of passage stories to tell? Along comes 'Paper Planes'. This is a well made, textured tale which is deceptively simple in approach, but with much to say about grief, loss, peer pressure, ambition, ego and pride. Ostensibly this is a film about folding pieces of paper and making them fly far!!!! It is about so much more. Director and Co-writer Robert Connolly has made some serious movies in his career including Balibo, The Bank and as Producer of the award winning The Boys and Romulus my Father. This foray into filmmaking, looks on paper, pardon the pun, as a softer option, but at a closer inspection, there are as I've outlined some weightier themes. The film and its success do rest on 2 ingredients: 1 The terrific visual effects that allow both the paper planes and the films narrative to take flight. 2 The casting and performance of Ed Oxenbould in the leading role. With acting parents and an uncle who was a child star of film and television, 12 year old Ed has racked up 3 major film roles within a 12 month period - in two Hollywood features and this Australian production. Ed has such intelligence and sensitivity on screen, and yet he never appears inauthentic or tryhard; difficult when in virtually every scene and required to act off some pretty heavy hitting screen partners: Sam Worthington, Deb Mailman and veteran Terry Norris. In some scenes Ed seemed like a boy; in others as a young man, the timing of shooting is critical when filming a story about a rite of passage into manhood and especially when the narrative carries grief and loss as well in that mix. Big things are predicted for this young actor.There are some broadly sketched characters, and some (David Wenham's sport star and Dad to the movie's villain) are underwritten. Other reviewers have commented on Sam Worthington's moping father routine, but I thought he carried it pretty well; a point of difference to his usual strident and big character roles. At the end of the day, this is the young man's story as he finds an expression for his energies and for his own losses. It is that which lifts this movie above just being a family friendly film about aiming for the sky and hoping to win. It also points to the degree that society and our kids have lost touch with the simple things. The symbolism of paper planes for a bygone era resonated with this baby boomer. It is the astute writing and naturalistic performance by the lead, that elevate this into something more significant about growing up, the importance of loyalty and mateship and the mantra of never giving up. I'm really pleased this movie has found an audience and will long be remembered, even with all the paper folding.

This is a sweet, simple little film, but with some interesting and thoughtful themes to get your kids thinking a little more about things they see sometimes, but may not really understand.The biggest of those themes is loss, and the reviewers who don't 'get' Sam Worthingtons character have completely missed this. You don't just 'get over' the loss of your wife five months after her sudden death, everyone has their own way of coming back, and Worthington's character hasn't found that way back when we meet him in the film. He's still lost. And it's his son's understanding of his dads grief that underpins the entire film. It's subtle, but it's the whole driving force of this story. The actual competition that seems to drive the film is actually secondary... but ultimately becomes the catalyst to get the father through his grief and back to 'life'.My 8yo son picked up on this about halfway through the film, when the father refused to sell the piano - he said 'I know why he can't sell it'. The storyline didn't flesh it out until later, when Dylan told Kimi that his mum had been a piano teacher - and this is another thing the film does; it reveals its layers slowly, and for the most part lets its audience figure things out for themselves.The messages and lessons for the target audience start almost from the beginning of the film - it will get kids thinking about sportsmanship, peer pressure, role models, friendship, and loss... and it does so with a good dose of laughter and a sublime sense of the ridiculous - always a winner with kids.Worthington's character didn't really hit his stride until mid film, which was a shame - it left the door open for the less cerebral members of the audience to assume he was just a deadbeat dad, and when those types make that assumption, they'll drop dead before they'll admit to themselves that they were wrong. Not Worthington's fault; the script should have introduced the bereavement earlier than it did.I also think the connection between Dylan's father and grandfather should have been explored a little more. Ultimately we end up knowing nothing about his father other than that he's shattered by the loss of his wife - that's a given, so why didn't we get a little more about the man himself? I slept on my lounge plenty of times myself in the months following my separation from my wife, but if I were a movie character I'd want my audience to know a bit more about me than that fact.Tip - have a decent supply of A4 paper on hand for the morning after watching this movie with your kids :)

I really wanted to like this movie. The premise is good but the execution was just terrible. Considering that some big names such as Sam Worthington, David Wenham, Deborah Mailman and Eric Bana (producing) were attached to it, I really thought we were in for a sweet, unpretentious kids movie. Happy to forgive the plot holes and the flight of fantasy sequence between the boy and his grandfather, but the dialogue was so poorly written it became just tedious in the end. I could have done a better job writing it, frankly. The young boy who stars in the movie just isn't a strong enough actor to carry it, at least not with the dialogue he was given to work with. Aussies can pull off some good, strong, well- scripted movies, but the weak ones like this one just pull the average right down.

I found this film to be enjoyable but again lacked polish as a lot of Australian Films tend to do. There is nothing Hollywood about this film. It skips through its plot just fine but it is a bit folksy and heavy handed. It has some nice themes which are quite uplifting. The film is a bit nothingness. Sam Worthington's performance lacks depth as usual and I find it interesting that he didn't even bother to turn up to his own Premiere of the film. Overall an "Ok" film with a nice story but have kind of seen it all before. Perhaps this would have been better released on DVD. With a theatrical release I kind of expected something more.