Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

tieman64 This is a review of "Fly Away Home" and "Wind", two films by Carroll Ballard.Loosely speaking, Ballard makes two types of films. Those in which humans tentatively interact with "wild" animals, and those in which man interacts with nature via technology inspired by the natural world. In the first category Ballard's made fare like "The Black Stallion" and "Duma", in the second he's made films like "Wind" and "Fly Away Home". Arguable one of his best films, "Fly Away Home" is about a daughter and father who build an ultralight air-plane that mimics the behaviour of, and acts as a surrogate mother for, a flock of geese. Using the plane, the duo guide the birds to a sanctuary several hundred miles away. It's a touching picture, filled with beautiful scenery, gorgeous aerial footage, sensitive direction and some wonderfully understated acting by Jeff Daniels Anna Paquin.Though his financiers force formulaic plots upon him, Ballard dislikes heavy-handed storytelling, and so tends to keep his characters quiet and muted. With his ethereal visuals, use of silence and love for wind/nature, "Fly Away Home" strongly conjures up the work of Malick and Miyazaki.The film has flaws: some of its rear projection is intrusive, some of its conflicts are a bit clichéd, some of its villains are cartoonish, and aside from the opening and closing song, Ballard's musical score isn't strong enough for such a poetic picture. Still, these flaws are minor and don't intrude on the film's better qualities. While "Fly Away Home" involves an inventor building an air-plane, "Wind" involves a group of mechanical engineers deg a boat. Sounds boring? Both films are more interested in mood and ambiance than they are plot. In "Wind", the design team relocate to a huge hanger at the centre of a vast desert, a world away from the oceans they hope to conquer. We watch as they sculpt away at their boat, Ballard salivating over sleek hulls, tall masts and mighty rudders. Muscles, skeletons, animals, rocks, wind and water are studied and observed, the boat a failure if its body doesn't bend to the will of the waves.Both films deal with men and machines waltzing with nature; our ultralight air-plane is only believable to the geese if they perceive it to be their biological mother, and Ballard's boats fail if they don't slice cleanly through the winds and waves. To resist nature is to compromise the design.Both films were also mildly influential in how they added to our camera vocabulary. "Fly Away Home" gave us some then new three-dimensional camera sweeps and "Wind" offered several cinematic baby steps as well, using specially designed camera mounts for both helicopters and boat hulls, masts etc. "Fly Away Home" is the better of the two films - it's one of the best "family" films of the 1990s - whilst "Wind" is plagued by a bad script, though it does also offer excellent mood and ambiance. You sense that Ballard wants to avoid conventional Hollywood scripts as much as possible, but that they're necessary to provide some semblance of either structure or marketability."Fly Away Home" – 8.5/10 "Wind" – 8/10

Steve Skafte Or so says Abigail Weld (played by Rebecca Miller) at about the mid-point of Wind. Personally, I hadn't thought about it much either way. But I'm also not sure what director Carroll Ballard's own views on the subject are, or if he was at all successful in getting them on film. He certainly makes the sailboats into quite a brilliant on-screen spectacle, but there's a lack of personal feeling here. A missing piece to the overall picture. There's certainly a huge emphasis on human-to-human drama that Ballard's four other features lack. Coming from the director who, by this point, had made a pair of highly personal films where the two main themes were isolation and loneliness, I somehow found that aspect to be conspicuously lacking from Wind.The film opens underwater, looking up into the sun and a man floating on the surface. Will Parker (Matthew Modine) winds his way through the cove as Kate Bass (Jennifer Grey) looks on. It feels almost like a scene out of The Black Stallion. He comes to shore, and they talk about what could or may happen in his future. Matthew Modine is a good actor, and he tends to play normal, everyday people. He's likable, sure he is. I doubt that anyone truly hates Modine as an actor. But the character of Will Parker doesn't have a whole lot of deep internal conflict. Sure, he has decisions to make - but nothing resembling the dark corners of the soul in a character like Tyler from Never Cry Wolf. Actually, most of the other performances are quite good, if a bit underdeveloped. Stellan Skarsgård, in particular, is enjoyable to watch.There's lots to enjoy about Wind - if you're not looking for anything complicated. From a scriptwriting standpoint, a central theme is either missing, or maybe a little confused. Events and conversations seem to repeat themselves in an attempt to overfill in the blanks. But here's the problem - for all intents and purposes, the film doesn't really begin until 48 minutes in. When the scene shifts to six months later in the Nevada desert, it quickly becomes clear that anything which happened previously was merely a set-up for the rest of the film. In fact, the ensuing scenes are of all far higher caliber than those preceding them. A certain parallel comes up between the recapture of the America's Cup and the subplot of Will trying to get back together with Kate. Not exactly the most original bit of scripting ever.So what really makes Wind worth the watch? The real star of the film - its cinematography. This is truly a great-looking film. John Toll makes a lot of what might otherwise be dull technical work into a stunning visual display. Many scenes stand out beyond his obviously brilliant work in the sailing sequences. The part where Kate tests a sail out in the desert is absolutely breathtaking. Just like Carroll Ballard's other films, the most visually stunning photography is in the quiet moments. But since Wind runs a little short on those, the camera-work doesn't find much time to wander. The music, on the other hand (composed by Basil Poledouris) is really nothing special. He does everything well but nothing new. This is not a movie you go to for its soundtrack. It must be said that the lack of overall cohesion in this film is disappointing. It is a very slight story, not possessing of any real meat or meaning. The actors have neither the quality of dialogue nor the specific motivation to live up to John Toll's cinematography.I've read interviews where Carroll Ballard talked about his relative unease with the drama between characters in this film, how it didn't flow as well as expected. And I sympathize with that. But at the end of it all - who really cares about the America's Cup anyhow? Not the average film-goer, apparently. And, unfortunately, not me either.

martinj918 Pure enjoyment! I can't understand the low ratings given this movie. I don't care if the plot is obvious or silly or what because I have never had the experience of BEING out on the sea in a 12 meter sailing ship and I have wondered how the shots were filmed! Don't miss this and here's a big pppfffffth to the bums here who gave a 6 or 7 point rating to this incredible movie. If movies are supposed to be fun and entertaining instead of instructional and deep and troubling then this one is tops. You will enjoy the racing of the little wild sailboats near the beginning of the movie -- I had no idea sailing could be so much fun.

TedMichaelMor Cinematographay, superb editing, and a first class sound track make this film. The light in Australia and Newport, aerial shots, even computer graphics (in news scenes), long framing shots, camera movement, medium and close shots on board the boats, and excellent narrative editing thrill the eye and our love of story.Contrast between the ocean and the desert where designer and builders construct the American challenger boat bring a delightful balance to the iconography.Preppie clothing and elegant on land settings let us pretend ourselves into a special and exclusive world. With all this, the actors play their hand in the melodrama with just the right pitch. I enjoyed the movie. Well worth watching again.