MOVIE REVIEW : ‘SKY BANDITS’ DOESN’T QUITE SOAR

Hollywood has always been better at chronicling colorful legends than dull facts--and with good reason.

When it comes to storytelling, there’s something deliciously appealing about shuffling the cards of history and dealing a new hand, complete with a few jokers to put a new spin on the tale. Of course, it helps to have a great story, which unfortunately is largely missing from “Sky Bandits” (citywide), a lighthearted adventure that restages World War I as a cartoonish Hardy Boys romp. The film has a few inspired comic touches, which might work well with younger audiences, but its heroes are so hokey and its plot so pokey that it never zooms into high gear.

The story takes us back to the dying days of the Old West, where we follow a pair of brash bank robbers, Barney (Scott McGinnis) and Luke (Jeff Osterhage). Caught dynamiting a bank, they avoid prison by swapping their cowboy spurs for doughboys’ uniforms, and quickly find themselves in France, dodging German machine-gun fire. Eager for romance and excitement, they join a renegade British air corps that has been doing battle--more or less--with an enormous German zeppelin. It’s hard to imagine how they ever expect to do any damage, especially since every wobbly returning plane crashes to the ground, as if no one had invented landing gear yet. But these aren’t just any English flyboys--they’re a suicide squadron determined to blast the hulking Hun airship out of the sky.

Director Zoran Perisic creates some nifty set-pieces, but his comic timing is way off--he doesn’t have a knack for playing his oddball characters against his outlandish mechanical inventions. The real hero here is production designer Tony Woollard, who presumably dreamed up the film’s spectacularly malevolent Zeppelin. Lumbering through the clouds like a helium-fueled aircraft carrier, it’s equipped with all sorts of fanciful armaments, including a periscope, grenade launchers and an open-air balcony that allows its captain to bellow threats down at his victims.

The film’s obvious drawback is its casting. McGinnis and Osterhage are the weakest links--when they gallop around the Old West in their three-day stubbles, they look like a pair of male models trying out for a Marlboro commercial. The supporting players have much more personality, especially Miles Anderson as the gruff British air corps commander and Ronald Lacey as the corps’ mechanic who’s had his brains scrambled in so many crash landings that he’s developed an impenetrable German accent.

There’s some good fun here, but the stilted story line has too many awkward moments to ever build up momentum. “Sky Bandits” (MPAA-rated PG) has the stale air of an old afternoon serial that plays better in your memories than on the big screen.

‘SKY BANDITS’

A Galaxy International Releasing presentation. Producer Richard Herland. Director Zoran PErisiC . Writer Thom Keyes. Camera David Watkin. Production Design Tony Woollard. Costume Design Betsy Hermann. With Scott McGinnis, Jeff Osterhage, Ronald Lacey, Miles Anderson, Valerie Steffen, Ingrid Held and Keith Buckley.

Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes.

MPAA rating: PG (Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.)