Aces High

Marvelously realized aerial sequences and a stellar British cast bring some life to R.C. Sherriff's hoary 1929 stage melodrama, "Journey's End." Sherriff's infantrymen are reinvented as 76 Squadron, a group of WW I flyers led by Malcolm McDowell; Christopher Plummer is a compassionate older officer who brings a sentimental understanding to bear on the fears of raw pilots played by Peter Firth and Simon Ward. Cliches abound--Oxbridge-bred officers casually dispatch working-class men to their deaths while sipping vintage wine in a distant chateau; a boy loses his virginity to a sultry French maiden before perishing in combat--but uniformly sensitive performances near...