The Hindenburg disaster had interested me for years and there have been a number of good documentary features as well as a quite decent Hollywood movie. Now, RTL Germany wanted to impress its viewers with a 10 Million Euro spectacle of the tragic disaster - mixed with a lot of drama, suspense and love of course. What sounds quite intriguing at first quickly unfolds to a beginners guide on how to waste 10 Million Euros.
In the first minute of the film I was amazed, that the opening titles already contained the best images of the Zeppelin SFX Explosion - a thing which I would have saved for the very last. Then, the viewer has to endure annoying E-Guitar music for the first few scenes. This film is supposed to be set in 1937 so the musical choice is a definite let-down right from the start and continues to bother me as a viewer in repetitive manner.
The cast of the US-German production mainly consists of well-known German actors and internationally renowned names like Greta Scacchi, Stacy Keach and Lauren Lee Smith. Despite a good line-up of actors, the characters can only be described as boring and stereotypical which hints to a poor and uninspired script.
Although the plot is supposedly built around the Hindenburg disaster, the viewer is dragged for 3 long hours through an almost ridiculous storyline with a few twists and turns that eventually lead up to the films climax. The initial idea behind the script is good and would have made quite a nice 2 hour feature film - but not more.
My conclusion after having seen the entire film is simple: Too much dramatization, weak characters, a bad musical score but still nice Special and Visual effects. Nevertheless, effects don't necessarily make a good movie and giving a tragedy like the Hindenburg explosion the modern day "Disaster-Movie-Treatment" the way it was done here can only be considered as shameless and embarrassing.
