The Flight of the Phoenix Review
by Susan Granger (ssg722 AT aol DOT com)December 18th, 2004
Susan Granger's review of "Flight of the Phoenix" (20th Century-Fox)
If you've been intrigued by the premise of mini-series "Lost," this is an enjoyable diversion.
The escapist adventure begins in the Tan sag Basin in Mongolia, where an American petroleum company site is abruptly shut down. A cynical cargo plane pilot Frank Towns (Dennis Quaid) and his co-pilot AJ (Tyrese Gibson) are sent to evacuate the disgruntled field workers, including the irate rig boss (Miranda Otto), a visiting oil exec (Hugh Laurie) and an eccentric traveler (Giovani Ribisi) who wound up in Mongolia. Shortly after take-off, the plane is ripped apart by a massive sandstorm. Towns miraculously manages to crash land in the Gobi Desert but the plane is damaged beyond repair. The survivors face a dilemma: how to get outta there before the water runs out and/or they're killed by marauding nomads. When the creepy traveler turns out to be an aircraft designer, he proposes they build a new plane out of the wreckage. But will it fly?
Director John Moore ("Behind Enemy Lines") and screenwriters Scott Frank ("Minority Report") and Edward Burns ("The Brothers McMullen") fail to fully develop their conventional characters and burden them with leaden, cliché-ridden dialogue. Then too, it pales in comparison with Robert Aldrich's original 1965 film with a cast headed by Jimmy Stewart and included Ernest Borgnine, Hardy Kruger, Peter Finch, George Kennedy and Richard Attenborough. But due to Brendan Galvin's exciting photography, this revamped version has tense intrigue plus a bickering ensemble: Kirk Jones, Jacob Vargas, Scott Michael Campbell, Tony Curran, Kevork Malikyan and Jared Padalecki. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Flight of the Phoenix" soars with a suspenseful 6. It begins and ends strong - if only they'd fixed the middle.
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