A companion piece to Band of Brothers and The Pacific which proves that WWII was as hellish in the skies as it was on the land and sea, Masters of the Air is a worthy follow-up to those two esteemed miniseries, capturing the horror, brotherhood and patriotic duty that defined the American air campaigns against Hitler’s Nazi regime.
Executive-produced by Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Gary Goetzman, developed by John Shiban and John Orloff, and directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, Dee Rees, and Tim Van Patten, this nine-part based-on-true-events adaptation of Donald L. Miller’s book of the same name (premiering Jan. 26 on Apple TV+) is old-fashioned through and through. A sprawling 1943-1945 saga about the 100th Bomb Group that soars far more often than it falters, it romantically lionizes the bravery and commemorates the anguish and sacrifices of “the greatest generation” via muscular action and poignant drama that understands what war is, what it takes to triumph in it, and why those who risk it all in service of their country and the world deserve our highest respect.
Masters of the Air’s impressive behind-the-camera pedigree is matched by headlining talent led by Austin Butler, Barry Keoghan, and The Boys in the Boat’s Callum Turner, whose breakout performance is the series’ finest. Turner is Major John “Buck” Egan, a cocky and dashing flyboy whose gung-go personality often leads to drunken trouble, and whose commitment to the Allied cause is so great that, at story’s outset, he’s frustrated by the fact that his rank will keep him behind a desk rather than in one of the fleet’s tin-can behemoths alongside his mates, most notably best friend Major Gale “Bucky” Cleven (Butler). That the two men share nearly identical nicknames speaks not only to their closeness but to their playful egotism. Though Cleven is the more soft-spoken and level-headed of the two (he doesn’t drink, gamble, or care about sports), they’re a pair of likeminded men with a passion for the sky and an eagerness to stick it to the Third Reich.
They get that opportunity upon being sent to their new Thorpe Abbotts home base in East Anglia, England, where they join an enormous collection of fellow Air Force bomber recruits, the majority of them young, inexperienced, and varying degrees of courageous and terrified. Masters of the Air draws its many different players in brisk, clean strokes while focusing on a select few, including weak-stomached navigator Major Harry Crosby (an excellent Anthony Boyle), brash pilot Lt. Curtis Biddick (Keoghan), and intrepid aviator Major Robert Rosenthal (Nate Mann), who arrives at Thorpe Abbotts after the rest and quickly establishes himself as one of the 100th’s most impressive (and, eventually, highly decorated) members. These protagonists are surrounded by various faces who, even in quick glimpses, are bursting with distinctive personality as well as familiar measures of enthusiasm and fear, and the richness of the series’ characterizations elicits powerful engagement with their exploits—and makes their demises all the more gut-wrenching.
There’s an authenticity to virtually every aspect of Masters of the Air, save for Butler, who does more heroic posing than the rest of the cast combined, talks in his quasi-Elvis drawl, and boasts hair that’s so perfectly coiffed and highlighted that he never wholly meshes with his compatriots. Still, those affectations are partially offset by Butler’s charisma, as well as by the material’s prime interest in Turner, whose boisterous, intense, larger-than-life turn embodies the series’ spirit. Even in a crowded venture such as this, Turner is the standout, radiating a confidence, fury, and loyalty—to his brothers in arms, and to the American air campaign—that’s prickly and multifaceted, and makes him the proceedings’ compelling center of attention.
Over the course of its nine installments, Masters of the Air’s on-the-ground drama gradually gains heft, whereas its aerial combat is thrilling from the start. Melding anxious cockpit and in-cabin footage with hectic CGI dogfights, the show conveys the chaotic madness of bombing runs, during which gruesome injuries and swift deaths are possible at any second. Directors Fukunaga, Boden and Fleck, Rees, and Van Patten deliver a steady stream of blistering skirmishes that are bolstered by fantastic details—from the checklists that crews go over before taking off, to the glitches and mistakes that complicate missions, to the unreal maneuvers executed to make it back home alive—as well as numerous suspenseful turns of events that are all the more jaw-dropping for being (or at least seeming) true. In its long-form action sequences, it begs for the biggest television screen available.
Masters of the Air’s hyper-saturated vistas of the sun-streaked clouds and horizon can sometimes undercut its realism, yet they’re preferable to standard-issue sepia-tones and ably enhance its idealized nostalgia. So too does its portrait of these men’s (and women’s) camaraderie, anxiety, trauma and dogged devotion to the fight. Be it the pilots’ superstitions, love affairs, PTSD, grievances with superiors, boozy quarrels with the Brits, or brief departures from the frontlines (which provide little lasting relief), the show understands the complex array of forces—literal, emotional, psychological, interpersonal—pushing and pulling at these warriors, whose hunger for sex and drink is a natural and desperate response to facing their mortality on a daily basis. Better still, it grasps the larger dynamics of global conflicts: the ugly inevitability of collateral damage; the heavy individual and national cost of standing against tyranny; and the necessity of seeing the big picture in any defense of freedom and democracy.
There are moments when Masters of the Air veers into mild clunkiness but its rah-rah corniness is primarily rousing, and the closer it nears its finale—a journey that entails harrowing bomber runs, a detour to Africa, flights from capture behind enemy lines, partnerships with the Tuskegee Airmen, and stints in inhospitable POW camps—the more one feels for its motley array of 100th Bomb Group heroes, who are, at heart, kids valiantly striving to save the world. If not quite the equal of its HBO predecessors, Shiban and Orloff’s epic nonetheless stands as a commendable and moving addition to Spielberg and Hanks’ tribute to the disparate Americans who gave it their all in WWII.
