Flyers (1992)

In this pair of films made for the giant-screen IMAX film format, top-flight images flutter about in search of a mission. To Fly is a history of flight from 19th-century ballooning to 21st-century space travel. Airborne for less than a half hour, it's painless and pretty. Flyers ties together occasionally exciting biplane and stunt footage with a perfunctory narrative about a veteran pilot and rebellious stunt boy. The camera dwarfs them as it ogles vintage aircraft, but with these stiff actors, that's no great loss. Neither program is as entertaining as Top Gun (or as heavy on Y chromosomes), but the color-drenched beauty of IMAX cinematography transfers beautifully to disc. B-