Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Maggie Lowe (I would like to preface this by saying that, due to a Netflix induced conundrum, I watched this remake before seeing the original 1966 film. That being said...) I thought this was an outstanding movie. It was extremely intense and even more dramatic than I suspected, but in the end it was an amazing movie. Giovanni Ribisi stands out as a weird little egomaniac who dominated the movie. He was unbelievable in his role! Ribisi does an amazing job of breaking all stereotypes we've placed on him to play this quiet, awkward, mousy little man. The writers and directors did an amazing job of shining light on the darkest parts of the human heart that we all try to keep hidden. They force us to look in on ourselves and recognize our hearts in one of these characters.

Wuchak This version of "Flight of the Phoenix" was released at the end of 2004 and is a modern take on the 1965 film with Jimmy Stewart.THE PLOT: A group of mostly oil workers crash land in the Gobi Desert where being found by a search party is unlikely. One of the passengers turns out to be an airplane designer who insists that they can create a new plane with the workable parts of the wreckage. Although an outlandish idea, it may be their only legitimate chance at survival.The plot is exactly the same as the original version with a few notable differences: It takes place about 40 years later; it includes a woman (Miranda Otto); it features a more racially mixed cast; and it takes place in the Gobi Desert rather than the Libyan Desert (although it was shot in Namibia, while the original was filmed in the deserts of SE California).I'm not one of those people who hates the very idea of remakes. I'm open to filmmakers taking a heralded classic and modernizing it, like the excellent remake of "The Parent Trap." That's what we get with this remake of "Flight of the Phoenix," except that it's not excellent. But it's not bad either. Although there are some new touches that are as good or even superior to the original (Like Liddle's powerful line to Towns in the debris field, as well as the confrontation with the Mongols sequence), this modernization ultimately pales in the shadow of the original. Why? There's less focus on character development and therefore the movie has less interesting characters. Instead the filmmakers opt for scenes that might maintain the attention of those with ADHD, like an explosion scene, a lightning storm sequence and a dubious attack by the Mongol smugglers at the very end (shouldn't they have attacked while they were pulling the aircraft? Or earlier?). But the biggest negative is that the movie just lacks the brilliant dramatic flow of the original.The film runs 113 minutes.FINAL WORD: This would be a better film for anyone who hasn't seen the original, but if you've seen the '65 version it's just so mediocre by comparison. Still, it's worth checking out if, like me, you love survival films. And it is interesting to see a different take on the same basic story.GRADE: C

ssobot3510 I suppose a remake can't be that different from the original, but watching the movie without watching the original gave me ESP, or the movie was just too predictable.Every event that occurred wasn't creative. The characters are not believable. The drama was way to scripted. I understand that it is a movie, but good ones take you out of the "I know what's going to happen" mindset for at least a few brief moments. Everything that happened could have easily been predicted without knowing beforehand.The most unpredictable thing that happened was the fact that the plane flew. No, I knew it was going to fly, but how they were going to do it was the unpredictable part: laying down and holding onto bars? Yeah, OK... I'd like to see anyone try that on any airplane without losing their grip at SOME point.In all truth, I enjoyed it, but it was so mediocre that I will soon forget about it.

dunmore_ego Remake of the classic 1965 Robert Aldrich film of the same name, John Moore directs this FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX with a slick, severe spank, yet fails to conjure the tension and desperation of the original. We can pinpoint the exact moment it fails: OutKast - "Hey Ya!" Yes, *that* "Hey Ya!" - that song you can never get out of your head once you hear it. In the middle of the Gobi Desert, while their lives hang in the balance, the full crew of a downed airplane get jiggy with a radio broadcast of "Hey Ya!" It sounds ridiculous on paper - and reads twice as ridiculous on film.Not that there's anything wrong with the song, but it's the only piece of source music amongst the otherwise tension-soaked soundtrack; inserted at a point where the marooned passengers unite psychologically as - heh heh - outcasts (Ohhh, I get it! These filmmakers are so clever-clever!). And the marooned strangers from all walks of life collectively shake their moneymakers and laugh and joke and dance and hammer in unison like the Seven Dwarfs and I feel dirty even describing it.And this sequence takes us so far out of the movie that it makes this phoenix look like a dodo.Other than that singular out-of-body moment, Lukas Heller's original storyline is intact, of the clutch of motley characters crash-landing in a desert (Gobi instead of Sahara) and rebuilding their plane to escape, under the tyrannical auspice of one of the passengers who claims to be an aircraft designer. Also retained is the mighty climactic twist of exactly what type of aircraft designer he is... Which means that all the good aspects of the movie are someone else's ideas. This PHOENIX has exemplary production values, so all they had to do was Not Add Dumb Stuff. Or OutKast. Guess everyone didn't get that memo. Dennis Quaid is Captain Towns, the rugged all-American pilot; Tyrese Gibson, his first mate; their passengers are a group of oil-riggers and civilians from an oil rig shut down by corporate decree. Miranda Otto (RETURN OF THE KING) is a bit too slight of frame and feminine of nature to be believable as the chief rigger (obvious she is on this flight to pander to Equal Opportunity Casting); Jacob Vargas represents the Mexican contingent; there's the Irish guy (Scott Michael Campbell), the gangsta (Sticky Fingaz), the Middle Eastern guy (Kevork Malikyan, pandering to that new demographic that rose to prominence after 9/11) and even the Corporate peacock (Hugh Laurie) who understands Middle Eastern languages and golf.And Giovanni Ribisi creates the most memorable character in Elliott the ambiguously-Euro "aircraft designer," with his overbearing principles, pragmatic nerdism and ducky voice. It's the best performance of the film. Every time he says, "Captain Towns" in that adenoidal bleat I'm laughing. His alpha struggle with Quaid is the sole reason this movie has any legs.Isn't Mirando Otto just a little too slim and milky-white to be here without being gang-raped? I mean, what more excuse are you guys waiting for? In the 1965 PHOENIX, James Stewart's crew experienced psychological and physical hell to build their escape vehicle. Apparently that's not enough in 2004, where the unnecessary drama of crazy Mongols has to be added, with a silly ticking clock chase sequence to put a Hollywood cherry on top of the climactic takeoff. Pandering to the demographic that needs all that superfluous silliness, there are explosions and a gun fight (and I'm sure there would have been a polar bear battle if idiot execs had their way), and when Fingaz wants to attempt walking across the desert, the crew describe the terrible things that could happen to him and show us the fantasy visuals like some kind of '80's music video. Have they forgotten we viewers have an imagination? Ducky Ribisi maintains, in that adenoidal whine, "My plane will fly! My plane will fly!" This movie won't.