Customer Reviews

Junior Pilot

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This movie was a lot of fun. The characters were likeable and the story was told with plenty of humor. Of all the movies I've ever seen that take place on an airplane (including all of the Airplane series and Soul Plane), this one is my favorite. The main character is a boy who day-dreams a lot and who must overcome this tendency to save the day. To add to the value of this DVD is a behind the scenes piece which is about an hour long. Also the commentary (featuring the lead actor and the writer/director) was enjoyable. Since the lead actor is a child, the commentary would be most appropriate for children. The director explains many aspects of movie-making in a many fully comprehensible by children over eight years of age.

I was a little leery about picking this one up, but it somehow intrigued me. It did sort of surprise me in that it wasn't as bad as I was expecting.
The formula is familiar : Kid loves the flight simulator game, has a dad who designs planes, winds up on a plane headed for disaster, kid saves day. Soundlike the usual hokeyness of a movie only the youngest of kids could possibly tolerate? You would be right if you said yes if it weren't for one thing this film has lots of: charm. I normally wouldn't enjoy this kind of movie simply because of it's fantasy land unbelievability but something keeps me aboard the whole time I watch Junior Pilot. The kids are no Haley Joel Osments in the acting department, but then the material is light and fun enough where they really dont have to be. The daydream sequences try to be slick and inventive like those in Sidekicks, but they are shorter and less of an impact on the main story of the film.
I think everyone who made this film went into it knowing that it was just supposed to be fun, and they showed it in their work very well. Kudos to everyone in the movie for understanding that sometimes fun can be a great thing. 3.75 stars

Junior Pilot is a likeable movie wich the whole family would enjoy, especially the kids. It is amusing, entertaining, and has the charm of the simplicity.
Very nice and funny performance of Mark Dacascos in this, his first children film.

Loved it. Wonderful kids movie. My 12 year old really enjoyed
it too. Finally, A clean wholesome movie you want your child to
watch and enjoy.

cute movie, this is a movie for the kid that loves adventure
and mischief. and trouble always looking for them.
an eric roberts production bad guy not really, but we all had
one of those in our lives when we were in school. think of it
as a lesson in life
i for one will buy this movie any eric robert fan would,just for the
enjoyment

"Junior Pilot" (also known as "Final Approach") is a typically bland kid's movie about a daydreaming ten year old who uncovers an antiquities smuggling ring, solves a kidnapping, lands a 777 full of passengers, and saves his school's arts program from budget cuts all in one day. Despite text on the back cover saying "Guaranteed Superior Quality," I have to question that claim. It is a movie suitable for kids and is inoffensive, but superior? They must have been talking about the quality of the DVD case, which was quite sturdy.

After the credits ("A Cool Production") we learn that precocious Ricky (Jordan Garrett,) son of unemployed airplane mechanic Larry Miller, lives in a land of neverending fantasies. He's the boy who cried wolf who got Microsoft Flight Simulator for Christmas, and he's taught himself to fly. I bet you can't guess where this is going. After a maudlin scene where we learn that his school's arts program is being axed for budgetary reasons (football coach Eric Roberts is concerned the sports budget might even feel a pinch; oh the pathos) ten students get on a plane for a field trip in Washington, DC. Pretty much every airplane movie stereotype is here, and lead Flight Attendant Stickler (character actor Steve Hytner) is off to a cranky start. Also onboard is a desperately ill person on a gurney with a doctor and nurse in tow and karate expert Kato. I was extremely amused to see Kato, who is played by "Iron Chef America" Chairman Mark Dacascos, acting alongside his son, Makoa. Dacascos is actually quite a good actor and outshines everyone else in the film by orders of magnitude.

Ricky thinks Kato has a gun, and much of the movie is spent trying to stop him from hijacking the plane with tactics employing food fights and extreme hot sauce interspersed with vignettes of things like Ricky and Kato in a martial arts fight to the death using a floor mop. You get the idea. The kids go into the cargo hold (I don't even need to point out that's impossible, right?) and build a luggage fort, then free a Doberman from his kennel and discover an antique Incan mask that's connected to a kidnapping being stolen by a nefarious criminal. They call 911, but that goes nowhere, so they take matters into their own hands and reveal that the medical patient under sedation is actually Ann Dorchester (Rosemary Morgan,) the kidnapping victim. Gunplay erupts, Larry Miller accidentally tranquilizes the female First Officer (Julia Nickson-Soul,) who has come out of the cockpit to negotiate with the hijackers, and Kato reveals himself to be a Federal Air Marshal! It's all very exciting!

A Flight Attendant tries to enter the cockpit but the electronic keypad has shorted out, so Captain Bonehead...sorry...Captain Noonan (Tim Thomerson) leaves his seat with nobody flying the plane to go fiddle with the door at the exact same time they enter terrible weather. He gets knocked out by the turbulence, and the door is jammed! And shorted out! Who will they call? It turns out that Walter (Larry Miller) is an expert on the electrical systems in cockpit doors and he, Kato, and a cast of thousands try to open it with no success. Ricky and feisty pals crawl through the floor, wiggle through a tube to the cockpit and fly the airplane to safety! There are even subplots about a self-indulgent, self-important Senator on a collision course with them in his private jet (that's the most realistic part of the movie of course,) and F-16s preparing to shoot the 777 down (and the wacky officers at the Pentagon who control them.) There's even a very brief subplot about pygmies in Africa and their possible use by US intelligence forces! (I'm not kidding.)

When the plane lands everyone deplanes and everything is just peachy: the pilots come off in wheelchairs, the Doberman comes off on a gurney (?), and the kidnapping is over as rich Mr. Dorchester (Art Cohan) is reunited with his daughter. He offers a huge reward to whoever saved his daughter, and after much debate the winner is (of course) Ricky, who does what any poor ten year old boy would do: he tells Mr. Dorchester to use the money to fund the arts program at his school, because other kids playing the clarinet incompetently means that much to him. It's a great social statement, and of course completely unnecessary, gratuitous, and unrealistic. But then again so is a ten year old flying a 777.

The DVD comes with a lot of extras including a filmmaker commentary track featuring Jordan Garrett, which is geared more towards kids. They would actually find it pretty interesting on balance, but adults not so much. The disc also features an extremely long "Behind the Scenes" feature (see the mop fight choreography!) and trailers.

This is obviously a fantasy movie geared to kids, and as such it succeeds. It's extremely contrived, but the kids do what they are supposed to do and are much less inept and annoying than their adult counterparts (Dacascos excluded.) If you think your pre-teen would like a movie with airplanes, it can be picked up for next to nothing, so feel free to give it a try, though don't raise your expectations too high or try to impose adult standards on it. On the bright side, it is definitely not the worst airplane calamity movie Eric Roberts has ever been in (that would be "Rough Air,") so you've got that going for you!