This item is currently not available. If you have this item,
Join and post it to share with others.
As superfluous remakes go,Flight of the Phoenixcould've been better, and could've been worse. It's a passable popcorn adventure, especially for those unfamiliar with the 1965 original, which starred James Stewart, made headlines for the crash-landing death of stunt-pilot Paul Mantz, and now stands as a minor classic of its era. This flashy remake stars Dennis Quaid in Stewart's role, adds a woman to the list of plane-crash survivors, and showcases Giovanni Ribisi, who gives a cleverly eccentric performance as the model-airplane designer who proposes to rebuild a crashed cargo plane into a single-engine escape from certain death in the remote Gobi desert. Both films are essentially identical, but this remake is somehow less believable (due to shortcuts in a haphazardly written screenplay) and much more spectacular, owing to the advantage of impressive special effects. Otherwise it's a routine dose of survivalist entertainment from the director ofBehind Enemy Lines, never convincing enough to be genuinely compelling, but certainly never boring.--Jeff Shannon
"I've been everywhere." Entertaining right when you pop it in the dvd or vcr player. Right when the opening credits come up with jonny cash singing, you think to yourself "Oh yeah, this is gonna be a good one." And it is. It is worth every penny. The story takes off and flys with the best of the abandoned out in the middle of nowhere movies. Dennis quad really outdone himself in this one. The characters are rich, the plot is intrigingly perfect, and the best part of all with this group of people is that they have a plan.
Beyond Belief To each their own, grandson, but the aviation faux pas were so ridiculous that if you know anything about airplanes the movie became silly. Probably not their intention.Great? You've GOT to be kidding If you rate this movie as an adventure film, it is purely run-of-the-mill. The characters are, as these movies go, shallow with motivations that are paper thin. The characters behave with the usual stupidity of such characters. For example, when you are in the desert, why would you go running up to a group of men unaccompanied by women, particularly if the men are dressed in dark clothing and carrying a lot of weapons? The lack of women and the isolation of the men should have been clues to the survivors of a plane crash that the men should be observed for a while before running up to them.
This movie is a nearly identical copy of the original, with a few minor exceptions. A group of men are on their way to a desert outpost when their plane crashes. The men, oops, one of the minor differences is that this movie includes a woman, decide that they can rebuild the plane and escape the desert. Another difference in this movie from the original is the addition of a group of sinister nomads with guns. The movie never explains the sinister nomads, and why the sinister nomads would go chasing after a plane as it begins to take off (the plane is leaving, the men are mobile and on horseback, once the plane is gone there is virtually no threat to the sinister men without motive - oh, wait; we needed some kind of action to obtain the all important young, male demographic).
Two areas of excellence for this movie are the action and the special effects. However, both are required to make up for the lack of coherent plot. As long as the audience is not thinking about the movie they will have insufficient time to analyze what is happening and the implausibility of some of the activity.
In the original 1965 version of the movie the focus of the movie was the battle of the men against the desert and against themselves, ultimately triumphing over the desert and learning to work as a team. This movie still has the desert, but the skillful development of characters is thrown out the window in favor of special visual effects and pointless action. If you prefer video games to plot, then you might like this movie. If you want to see a movie with intelligence and character development, watch the original.
