Journey to Royal (2021)

 

            “Journey to Royal” is a strange little movie.  It was written and directed by Christopher Johnson.  He also appears in it.  It is a tribute to his great uncle Royal Stratton.  Stratton died in WWII trying to rescue a downed bomber crew in the Pacific.

            The film is a documentary/drama hybrid.  Actors reenact the crash and rescue and the actual people involved provide talking heads.  It jumps right in with the stricken B-29.  The CGI is poor and the movie has a definite low budget feel to it.  It’s not able to pull off a convincing crash.  One man is badly injured and several are missing.  Suddenly, it switches to the narrator talking about his great uncle Royal.  Spoiler alert:  he died in the rescue.  Royal’s brother and sister are  interviewed as well as some of his crew and the surviving bomber crew.  The movie bounces between the interviewees and the reenactors.  And it also tosses in archival footage.  This footage allows the movie to cover much more than the crash/rescue.  For example, it covers the USS Indianapolis’ delivery of the atomic bomb to Saipan.  This additional coverage smacks of padding. 

            It is hard to pound a movie that was obviously a labor of love.  Royal Stratton was undoubtedly brave and he was lucky to have Christopher Johnson to commemorate him, but the movie doesn’t work well as either a documentary or a drama. The actors are painfully amateurish.  But the main problem is the story itself is not compelling.  It does not rank in the upper half of WWII tales. 

GRADE  =  D