If I wrote in my review for THE LAST STARFIGHTER that the movie perfectly recreated the fantasy of the kid playing the arcade console becoming savior of the world, one quarter at a time, then IRON EAGLE is virtually an arcade video game, for better or for worse.
Back in the 1980s, when the U.S. Airforce had several real encursions with Libyan fighter planes, an American pilot is shot down over the Meditteranean Sea and is taken captive. He's tried before a kangaroo court, and is given a death sentence. As diplomatic and military hands are tied back home, and time running out, his son decides to mount his own rescue operation.
What proceeds is practically the big-screen adaptation of 1942, that awesome classic Capcom WW2 video game about a lone American fighter plane who destroys the entire Japanese airfleet, regardless of fuel or ammunition supplies.
See as a kid fly a F-16 and shames his military elders by blowing up a Libyan airbase, blast away several bogies, able to land his plane, rescue his pops, all by himself! Why did the AirForce Academy turn down his application? Maybe they simply hate Queen fans.
If we had this teenager enlisted now, I'm sure America would have the Iranian nuclear "question" solved within a week.
What surprised me though was how similar the plots for IRON EAGLE and STARFIGHTER are: A young guy who wants to escape from home to greater glories, but initially denied until they're forced upon a quest to fulfill the destiny of their heroic potential.
If Robert Preston was the wiseman in STARFIGHTER, then Louis Gossett Jr. is the meaner, grouchier, and more badass mentor. He's Ernie Hudson, but with an attitude. Oddly enough, both seem to get killed but somehow return to life by the finale.
The main difference though is that STARFIGHTER wasn't bogged down by contrived nonsense. From the whole annoyingly pointless bully angle that I'm sure inspired the emo angle in TRANSFORMERS to what the hero's friends do to make his mission happen, I rolled my eyes. I was reminded of another kids-save-parents picture from the Reagan Decade in THE RESCUE, where North Korea jobbed out this side of Val Venus.
That said, despite those problems and some scenes of the hero being a bitch with Gossett, I actually was sorta enjoying the movie. Then the immaculate rescue and ass-kicking occurs, and I lost interest. I threw up my hands when to top it all off, the kid shoots down the dictator himself.
Now some of you might remark, why be so critical with EAGLE and not so with STARFIGHTER? The difference between both fantasy concepts is, STARFIGHTER had the sci-fi escape clause. Considering the pivotal tie-in of the macguffin with the arcade machine, the hero pulling a Death Star is in lines with the arcade fantasy, which I was compelled by.
With EAGLE, its grounded in reality down on Earth and its just plain silly.
Though I have to say, its a watchable cartoon of its time...which I can't say for another goofy-aerial action flick released in the same year.
But TOP GUN will get blown out of the sky soon enough....
