Less a documentary about the B-52 than it is a documentary about filmmaker Hartmut Bitomsky learning about the B-52, this film disappointed me to no end. Made with an incredible amount of egotism, the director appears on camera throughout the film, even though he knows nothing about his subject. And then there is the pretentious, pretentious narration -- which sounds like what Mike Meyers character, Dieter, might say if Sprockets were doing a show about the B-52 -- spoken by a man...and a woman. This is a distracting and annoying device which serves more to say "look at what an interesting filmmaker I am!" than "here is some more information about the B-52."
And speaking of subjects, Bitomsky gets interviews with some excellent ones, B-52 pilots, mechanics, etc. and then goes on to cut several of them off mid-sentence. Meanwhile, the conceptual artist who creates art installations out of B-52s rambles on for 15 minutes straight. Luckily, this was a good source of comic relief for the audience with whom I watched the film. I have no idea whether this was intentional.
Bright spots in the pic were excellent camera work, and some great archival footage. Other than that, if you want to learn something about the B-52 bomber, you're probably better off watching the History Channel. If you want to learn about a filmmaker using a slightly unorthodox directing style whilst making a documentary about himself making a documentary about the B-52, see this movie.
