A cargo plane on a
routine flight suddenly hits
a
high-turbulence storm, forcing
a crash
landing hundreds of miles off course
in the
barren Gobi desert.
Among the
survivors, one eccentric passenger leads the crew to build a new
plane - against all odds, against all hope, and
sometimes...against
each other.
CRITIQUE
Flight of the
Phoenix is the kind of action movie that's entertaining for
most of the time but is also predictable. The script by Scott
Frank (Out of Sight) and Edward Burns (The Brothers
McMullen) gets into the main story in considerable time, with
the plane crashing and the survivors realizing their shitty
situation at the twenty-minute mark. Where the script falters,
however, is the characterization of the survivors. Dennis Quaid
plays pilot Frank Towns, but the script doesn't offer any
background on the character, at least none that I picked up.
Without much to go on, Quaid's performance is sub-par and decent
at best.
On the other hand,
Giovanni Ribisi's character, who knows something about airplanes,
is perhaps the movie's most interesting character, not to mention
the weirdest one, too. Tyrese Gibson plays the co-pilot, but oddly
his character sometimes disappears between scenes. Miranda Otto is
kind of wasted in her small and unimportant role, while Sticky
Fingaz's acting is pretty terrible (his dialogue consists of
cheesy one-liners). Co-stars Hugh Laurie and Jacob Vargas do a
good job, however, and Tony Curran as well, except his accent gets
in the way sometimes.
Another area of the
script that doesn't quite work is how this group of people bond to
overcome their situation. It takes a little time for them to get
along, but when they do there's just too much harmony in between.
True, there are confrontations here and there (there's the issue
with conserving water), but never any real animosity. If there
was, the movie wouldn't be very uplifting, and that's against the
rules (speaking of formulas). There is a sense of lost hope
expressed by some of the characters, others still believe in a
rescue, but there's never any hint at desperation. Over the course
of the movie I felt like everything was going to work out; like I
said, a predictable story.
In reference to
harmony, there's a scene where the survivors dance to Outkast's
"Hey Ya" on the radio while working on the new plane, in my view
definitely a terrible and most dumb way to show these people
bonding (the scene just plays out in a weird way). Much more
effective is the use of the song "Angel" by Massive Attack for a
dramatic scene that shows some of the survivors approaching a
group of raiders camping out over the sand hill in an effort to
obtain water and help.
Script issues aside,
Flight of the Phoenix offers decent-sized entertainment and
some well-realized action scenes. Director John Moore still has
some things to learn about making his stories resonate
dramatically, but as he showed with Behind Enemy Lines he
knows his stuff when it comes to action, with good help from the
effects teams and so on.
THE VIDEO
Fox presents Flight of the
Phoenix in 2.35:1
anamorphic widescreen. The colors look hot and vibrant, and
mostly crisp, while the Gobi desert sand looks almost
golden-like. Picture quality is devoid of any big flaws, there
is some grain here and there as are tiny specks in some scenes.
Dark levels are fine, sharpness and detail look pretty good.
Some images appear overly glow, and one scene that's supposed to
take place at early dawn was obviously shot during the day and
saturated to give it the desired effect, yet the picture
(blue-like) seemed a bit too dark and I couldn't quite make out
all the action going on. Overall, this is a pretty good
transfer. Optional subtitles include English and
Spanish.
THE AUDIO
Fox presents Flight of the
Phoenix
in English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround as well as 5.1 DTS. Dialogue is clear and
easy to understand, and the music and the grand sound effects
are very nicely reinforced by both the front speakers and the
surround channels. Overall a very nice effort from Fox. Also
available is a French Dolby Digital Surround dub track.
THE EXTRAS
The movie didn't
do well in theaters but that didn't stop the studio from
including a number of good special features for the DVD release.
The audio
commentary by director John Moore and ? is serviceable in
terms of offering some informative anecdotes about the
production and other topics. A fairly conversational track
overall but nothing terribly interesting.
The Phoenix
Diaries is a 42-minute behind-the-scenes documentary that
takes a fly-on-the-wall approach to showing the shooting process
(lots of time with John Moore screaming here and there,
explaining his thoughts at the current time, and so on) and the
actors dealing with press interviews (Tony Curran hates it,
Giovanni Ribisi is uncomfortable with it) or goofing off on set
(Tyrese Gibson mostly). This documentary is quite candid and
includes high usage of the word "fuck", but it's not edited as
well as it should be. Still, it's much better than a lot of
other behind-the-scenes featurettes for movies.
The four
extended scenes add to the movie and I found them
interesting, and three deleted scenes are featured with
optional commentary. Reasons for cutting them is the
ever-recurring issue of pacing, although in this case these
scenes flesh out the movie a little better. The DVD packaging
says "over 15 minutes" of footage is included but really the
scenes add up to only fourteen minutes. Lastly there is a
promo reel for other Fox titles as the DVD starts up.
The menus look
very simple and the transitions play three-second clips
that I consider spoilers. The 113-minute feature is
organized into thirty-six chapters.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Flight of the Phoenix
is entertaining but also predictable. The DVD is pretty well-rounded
in terms of video/audio quality and extras, and therefore I'm
recommending it.
