Customer Reviews

Flight of the Phoenix [VHS]

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(29)
2 star:		(22)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

This is the WORST remake of any movie I've seen in my life. The original movie had SUPERIOR actors and paid close attention to ALL details pertaining to what life would really be like if this indeed happened. This remake includes wimps,stupidity and a list of ridiculous ideas and total ignorance of what it would be like trapped in a desert in conditions that are beyond most imaginations. I'm going to burn this DVD in my outdoor firepit first chance I get. You really need to see the original to understand just how bad todays movies are!!!

Saw it Saturday at the Bridge theater in Culver City. In one word, my review would be, "awesome." I remember when I was a boy my dad taking me to see the old Robert Aldrich movie "The Flight of the Phoenix" at the tiny Kings Park Theater on Long Island. That as so long ago James Stewart could still play an action hero. I loved the picture then, and I think a lot of boys my age still will connect the movie with similar male-bonding experiences with their dads--maybe they should have released this re-make during Father's Day holiday instead of Christmas. Anyhow, the remake did not disappoint. Dennis Quaid is no Jimmy Stewart, but he's just as good in this as he was in THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. Funny in this one he's always traipsing up and down over Gobi desert hills in Gunga Din heat sweating his balls off, whereas in TOMORROW he was all icy cold with ice forming over his face. What a year it's been for poor Dennis Quaid. In this film he plays Frank "Shut Em Down" Townes, a crack pilot who makes some unfortuante decisions early in the film and spends the rest of the time living them down and trying to righten things.

Miranda Otto looks completely different than she did in the final two films of the LORD OF THE RINGS tragedy. She plays Kelly, a tough as nails oil driller and physically she looks a lot like Evangeline Lilly who plays "Kate" on ABC's LOST. Everyone around me sitting in the theater was commenting on how much this film resembles LOST. Frank and Kelly are just like Jack and Kate in LOST, there's a quasi-Sayed guy who spouts a lot of mystic Kahil Gibran philosophy, a chubby guy sort of like Hurley, and strange monstrous creatures out there who are using the castaways as target practice. And of course, there is the shadow of the wrecked plane spilling out over the sands. But THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX is not a rip off of LOST, rather, the resemblance is the other way around. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat its lessons, but for today, my tip is, if you like action pictures and don't mind the constant burning sun, see this film and try to figure out what twists and turns are coming next. And also, even if you dislike Giovanni Ribisi in other movies, don't let us casting here prevent you from seeing this film, because he shows another side of himself here and will really win your heart despite playing such a loathsome, racist, lying, manipulative and sociopathic character.

This is an awful remake of a magnificent film. Most of the elements that made the original a classic are missing. However, many other elements were added in order to "update" the story, including a female character (perhaps to provide potential romantic interest, although no romantic interest actually ever develops), a rock music soundtrack (which detracts from rather than adds to the story), a meaningless bandit cavalry charge to provide suspense (it doesn't), a character who philosophizes against the evils of religion, and the inevitable (in today's Hollywood) big bad corporate bigwig throwing his weight around against the poor victims of the big bad corporate financial interests that supposedly decided not to bother looking for their lost plane.

Additionally, the casting isn't very good, nor is the acting. None of the great acting and character development of the original are present here. The original had at least a half-dozen superb, memorable performances; this version has none. The main character should have been an over-the-hill retread like the plane he was flying, as in the original. Instead, a "romantic leading man" had to be cast as the pilot because there was now a woman cast opposite him, and the result is a character who develops no chemistry with either the female lead or the plot.

But possibly -- no, definitely -- the film's worst problem is the inept direction, which relies on technical gimmicks (camera motion, quick cuts, voice inaudibility during moments of action, etc.) in a failed attempt to replace the emotion that should have been provided by the story and the acting. This and the previously mentioned problems make it nearly impossible for the movie to gel in any way that could produce a meaningful emotional response in the audience. In all, this a miserable attempt at reviving a classic film -- one that never really gets off the ground.

I was amazed how people could be the hot sunny desert not get sun blisters, run around with their cloths off (ever seen a naked Bedouin on camel back), drink only a pint a day of water and not get cracked lips. Truely super human. I don't think they even got tan. And how did they strap people to the wing of a plane (with wind shields) and not ruin the air flow that keeps a plane aloft? Amazing.

If you havent seen this movie yet. DONT. Buy the original with James Stewart. Its about 100 times better.


Where do I start. The film has one great scene and that is of the plane crashing. Thats it. After that we get one bad scene after another. We never get to know the characters like we do in the original. They seemed more forced in this version. There are some lines pulled right out from the orignal but they cant save this trainwreck, they are delivered so badly its embarassing. When the plane gets buried in sand the passengers dig out not only the plane but the surrounding area as well but it looks like they manage to dig out a HUGE area around the plane that would take bulldozers a week to dig out. Theres a stupid scene where the passengers start dancing to a song on a cd player. These guys have just crashed, low on water, working day and night to build a plane and they are goofing off dancing? Dont even get me started on some of the life speeches in this film. I also got a good laugh after the film they put pictures of the characters and what they did after they were rescued. The model designer was on a magazine cover now working for NASA. Cheesy as hell.

The only people who will can possibly enjoy this film are KIDS

Save your money...or better still buy the original 1965 version thats great!!
This is a case of the re-make being by far the worse of the two. The new film has all the hallmarks of a film to please the masses... its politically correct.... its got people with attitude...and don't try to take on the Americans...cause they will kick your a**...Appalling rubbish and quite painful to watch. And if you know anything about aviation your going to laugh at how bad it is...

Sadly, Flight of the Phoenix is just another duff remake. Despite massive advances in special effects and a moderately exciting last two minutes, this feels even longer than Robert Aldrich's much longer original, and the reason is pretty elementary: lack of characterisation and drama. Where Aldrich typically set his flawed protagonists at each others throats in a hostile environment that was driving them mad and dealt with the way the pilot who crashes off-course in the desert turns his guilt into anger at his passengers, this is mostly feel-good stuff, full of life lessons, spiritual slogans and far too much high fiving for any self respecting survival drama - at one point they even get down and boogie. A modicum of drama is thrown in at the last minute in the wake of the key revelation about the new plane's designer, but it's so little and so late that it totters on the edge of laughable. As a result, some good actors and Giovanni Ribisi (horribly overacting the old Hardy Kruger part minus the Nazi undertones) are stranded by committee filmmaking rather than the elements and poor piloting.

Strangely, for such a bland film, the making of documentary is surprisingly gloves off, showing director John Moore in full effing and blinding mode as he throws several fits (and he's not the only one). At least one of the extended scenes (involving a biplane) was good enough to be in the feature, and the commentary throws up the odd interesting fact amid the mutual back slapping. The result is a modest extras package that easily outshines the film.

Flight of the Phoenix, directed by John Moore and starring Dennis Quaid, is a good flick if you are looking for something light. Quaid does a good portrayal of the pilot who crashes his plane in the desert, along with passengers from an oil-rig. With their hopes for rescue dwindling along their water and food supplies, they become convinced by one of the passengers, a stranger who says he designs airplanes, that they can build another airplane out of the parts from the wrecked plane. Giovanni Ribisi plays the stranger in an appropriately creepy manner-- one is left with the feeling that if and when the new plane gets back to civilization, the other passengers will kill him upon arrival.

Miranda Otto also does a fine job as Kelly, the oil-rig operator; and it's nice to see that there is no big deal made about the fact that she is a woman. Neither does the movie throw in a romance between her and any of the other characters-- she is simply another one of the "guys".

Inevitably you will want to compare this to the old Jimmy Stewart movie or the book upon which it is based. Don't, because if you do, it will inevitably fall short in the comparison. However, taken on its own, the plane crash is scary, the tension is high, and except for a stupid subplot involving bandits, it is fun to watch.

Stop complaining about wasting two hours of your life! You missed the warning about what lay ahead in the very opening scene: Gobi desert. Mongolia. Oil exploration. An international team of "oilmen" and a woman are frustrated at not finding oil in what basically is a huge flat mountain. Lives are broken. Careers are ruined.

Dear script writer: Oil in sand Ok in Saudi Arabia. Oil and sand no go in Mongolia.

I did love the toy plane designer fella pull an R2D2 in the broken rudder incident, though. DO fast forward to the scene. It's at the very end of the movie.

Macho, muscles, six-packs, hot-shot attitudes, and a real cool crash scene. That's the good part.

I was really looking forward to a kind of "Junk Yard Wars" type movie that went into great detail on how the old damaged plane was torn apart and rebuilt from the scraps. But in this I was greatly disappointed. Most of the work took place off camera, and the few scenes we did see were sketchy and didn't make much sense.

Example: They are about to put one of the wings in place, a tricky task no doubt, but for some horribly unexplained reason there is a difficult job that only the company chef can perform. Why the chef? What is the job? We are never told! He is handed a big chunk of metal that looks like a huge spike and told to crawl into the fuselage, and in the process of lowering the wing into place, some chains snap and the wing slides down prematurely, seemingly crushing the chef. Then two seconds later, he emerges unharmed from behind a pile of rubble, everyone cheers, and he jokingly asks for a new pair of pants. End of scene. There are way too many scenes like this one that leave you wondering "Huh? What in the world just happened?"

Okay, so we're not going to learn, bolt-by-bolt, how the plane was rebuilt. But at least we get a good, in-depth, drama type film that goes into detail on the characters, right? Uh, sorry. Wrong.

Each of the characters falls way too easily into pre-cut stereotypes. Frank Towns (Dennis Quaid) is the Han-Soloish pilot who by default leads the group, and of course rules more by yelling and bravado then compassion and understanding. Rady (Kevork Malikyan) was meant to be the beautiful female lead, but she wasn't that beautiful and her lead wasn't very strong. All she's good for during the entire movie is one little "Hopes and Dreams" pep talk to Frank.

By far the most enjoyable character is Elliott (Giovanni Ribisi), the psychopath, self-inflated nerd who designs planes for a living. Yes, it might have been nice to know more about why this guy suddenly found himself in the middle of the Gobi desert at an unproductive oil field at the exact moment it was being shut down and the employees flown-out. But over looking that (and so many other glaring holes in the story) the reason he's fun to watch is because he's more then a paper-thin cutout whose every move is predictable. We KNOW that Frank Towns is going to go into the desert after the idiot who runs away out of desperation. We KNOW that Randy is going to give Frank the "you-can-do-it" pep talk when everything looks impossible. We KNOW all the buff guys with giant shoulders and flat abs are going to give each other lots of high-fives and dance on the wings of the plane. But Elliot keeps us guessing, and might even salvage what would have otherwise been a total loss of a movie.

All in all, it's a fun little story that's enjoyable to watch, once. But it's also full of scenes that are only half complete and so lacking in detail I can only chalk it up to laziness on the part of the screen play writer, the director, or both.