Remember how film pioneer Howard Hughes was waiting for clouds in order to photograph fighter planes in “The Aviator”? Director Tony Bill and cinematographer Henry Braham find clouds for the dogfights but are missing an emotional connection to their characters.

Opening in 1916, “Flyboys” are the American pilots who formed the Lafayette Escadrille, fighting for France against Germany’s Jagdstaffeln before the U.S. entered World War I. These idealistic Yanks report to Capt. Thenault (Jean Reno) for a brief training at a chateau in the French countryside.

Cocky Blaine Rawlings (James Franco) is an orphaned Texan whose family ranch has been foreclosed. William Jensen (Phillip Winchester) is the conflicted scion of a Nebraska military family. Briggs Lowry (Tyler Labine) is a rich kid trying to prove himself to a tyrannical father. Eddie Beagle (David Ellison) is a screw-up who has trouble hitting targets. Eugene Skinner (Abdul Sallis) is the boxer son of a former slave who appreciates Frances’ racial tolerance. Their squadron leader is jaded pilot Reed Cassidy (Martin Henderson), a loner with a pet lion, who says their life expectancy, is six weeks. That makes Rawlings’ relationship with a local girl, Lucienne (Jennifer Decker), all the more poignant in the film’s epilogue.

In the sky, the scenes soar, as the French bi-planes look extraordinarily fragile against the superior German tri-planes, particularly when a zeppelin appears. Back then, pilots didn’t wear parachutes and their only “contingency plan” consisted of a self-inflicted pistol shot. But the ground story never takes off because the pedestrian screenwriting lacks in subtlety and subtext, relying on clichés.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, Flyboys is a nostalgic 5, recalling a time when combat honor was inherent and pilots not only recognized one another in the air but fought their own personal duels.