Review of Flight of the Phoenix (2004) by Chris C — 05 Feb 2014

Flight of the Phoenix is a remarkable film, in the sense that it somehow bills itself as an action/drama and yet contains elements of neither. This pointless and bland story of a group of exceedingly obnoxious characters who crash-land in the Gobi Desert goes literally nowhere, padding its time with unnecessary and repetitive scenes where the actors do nothing but repair a plane for two hours. Adding to the monotony of the proceedings is corny dialogue and poor special effects, neither of which are even utilized very often due to the lack of dramatic weight or spectacular action that this film bills itself as containing. There comes a point in this film where you just stop caring about the proceedings. And a lot of people will reach that point very quickly.

This remake of the 1965 film by the same name stars Dennis Quaid and Tyrese Gibson, two actors who I never understood the appeal of and whose performances in this film never ceased to confound me. Quaid's inconsistent pilot goes from being loud and abusive to being the hero of the story in seconds flat, making the audience wonder who the hell they're supposed to be rooting for. Gibson basically stands around and recites his lines, happily collecting another paycheck. Movies like this assume that the audience will root for the characters just because they are in a dire situation, but that's not the way stories work. For us to root for someone, we need to be given a little more than "They're stranded and they need help." There are no real characters in this movie, and whenever someone tries to stand out from the dozen or so bland performances in it, they are usually acting like a total turd. In short, none of these people are worth watching a movie about, let alone rooting for constantly during a two-hour runtime.

The dialogue is incredibly poorly written, but that's to be expected from a John Moore film. Moore, the hack director who was recently made infamous for butchering the Die Hard franchise, has the double threat of being both a bad director and bad at picking scripts. Several lines of dialogue in this movie make no sense, but the most head-slappingly silly is when Quaid goes out looking for a fellow passenger and finds him standing over the dead body of another guy who fell off the plane during the crash. The passenger informs Quaid that someone must have come along to steal the dead guy's watch, because it is missing. Then, it is later shown and referred to that the dead body was peppered with bullet holes and was lying in a pile of shell casings, implying that someone used it for target practice. Good God, there are so many things wrong with this. Firstly, why was the attention paid to the missing watch, when the fact that the body was turned into swiss cheese was evidence enough that someone had seen it? Why were the bullet casings piled around the body when Quaid said it was used for "target practice?" I don't imagine a group of nomads in the Gobi Desert doing target practice at point-blank range. Aaah, fuck it. This is not a movie worthy of being picked apart.

The CGI is atrocious as well, especially in the scene where the plane crashes. The swirling dust storm is clearly computer-generated, and the shots of the plane maneuvering through it are ludicrous and poorly-done. Not to mention the final sequence, in which the nomads choose the exact moment when the Phoenix is about to take off to start their attack. Gee, what great fucking timing! It's such a wonderful coincidence that this happened! Now we can watch the nomads chase the Phoenix across the desert, even though there is literally no suspense because we already knew the outcome of this film from the moment it started! Throw in a "Plane-flies-off-the-cliff-and-disappears-dramatically-only-to-fly-back-up-again" cliche, and we've got a great ending!

Final Score for Flight of the Anus: 2/10 stars. Yes, this film sucks, but I never found myself hating it with a passion like other movies Jed Groff has recommended to me (After Earth, Paranormal Activity 2, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Hobbit, etc). It's just a lackluster and chaotic movie that is nearly devoid of all entertainment value. If you watch the beginning, then fast-forward to the last ten minutes, I'm sure you'll have a great time. And if you're looking for something dramatic and powerful, well... don't even bother renting it.