Mission of Honor Blu-ray Review

Mission of Honor Blu-ray Review

Story

Mission of Honor is the story of Squadron 303, a group of heroic pilots who fought in the skies over England in the Battle of Britain during WWII. These brave men were not just fighting to keep Great Britain free from the Nazis, but also to keep alive the memories of their own countries; which had been caught in the crossfire as Germany tore across Eastern Europe. Equipped with nothing more than obsolete RAF planes and second-hand uniforms, they flew for all of those who had become casualties in one tyrant's quest for power.

Review

Mission of Honor follows Squadron 303 which was comprised of mostly Polish pilots. The movie really portrays how they were looked down upon and severely underestimated. A lot of the other pilots and squadrons spoke down to them and would joke about how badly they were beaten by German forces on their own. The movie actually spent quite a bit of time showing the disrespect that was given to this squadron and how being assigned to it was a demotion of sorts.

Mission of Honor plays out almost like an underdog sports film, first we are shown how this squadron came about and how they grabbed whatever pilots they could. A lot of these pilots came from countries who weren't exactly successful but not because they were less skilled but because of their size when compared to the Germans. Next the squadron is being trained up because their not up to par for what the Royal Air Force is looking for. They are being shown the fundamentals much to the dismay of the squadron who feel like they are already ready for live action missions. There are a handful of humorous scenes that demonstrate how some of these pilots might be more ready than the other more respected service members. 

Like any war movie there are some war scenes and here they all take place in the sky. I had some concerns for these scenes because of the fact that this is a low budget movie and the CGI might be detrimental to the film. However I must say for this type of movie the CGI is adequate and does what it was supposed to do. Obviously it is not Oscar worthy work but it did not distract me or take me out of what was going on.

A movie like this one has to rely a lot on character development to make us care about what is going on and to connect with this characters beyond just their appearances. Unfortunately they weren't able to add too much depth to these characters, at least for me. I didn't find myself really caring much about them when they were in the air and their interpersonal relationships on the ground didn't interest me much either. That doesn't mean the actor's performances were bad but I wish the movie had given us more background on individual characters instead of just having other characters give us bits and pieces.

VIDEO

Mission of Honor is presented in 1080p in a 2.40:1 aspect ratio and delivers a consistent video quality. Honestly I had no major issues with any scenes throughout the movie. I viewed this on my Xbox One S which to be honest I'm not sure if it upscales the quality at all but it sure looked like it did. As I mentioned in my review the CGI was not detrimental to the film and actually looked quite sharp on screen. Some of the lower lit scenes did have some overlying haze but nothing that really affected my viewing experience. 

AUDIO

 So I watched this film with my Bose Cinemate II system which isn't exactly the most modern surround sound system around but it still does a great job for my current setup. The war scenes sounded great and the the firepower from the plans came across as impactful through my speakers. Dialogue driven scenes were mixed well and I had no issues with hearing conversations even when there was background noise present. Overall a sublime audio experience can be expected from this Blu-ray release.

EXTRAS

Not too many extras are included.

• Q&A with Director David Blair
• On Set with Iwan Rheon, Milo Gibson, Rosie Gray, Stefanie Martini, and Emily Wyatt

LANGUAGE

• English

SUBTITLES

• English SDH

FINAL THOUGHTS

Mission of Honor is a solid war movie that does well with the storytelling as far the build up goes but lacks character development. If you are a fan of war movies then give it a go. 

Mission of Honor is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital from Cinedigm.