Flight of the Phoenix

An oil rig in the Mongolian Gobi Desert is getting shut down. Captain Frank Towns (Dennis Quaid) and co-pilot A.J. (Tyrese Gibson) are flying Kelly Johnson (Miranda Otto), her crew and the equipment back to Beijing. Elliott (Giovanni Ribisi) is a mysterious stranger who catches a ride. The plane crashes in a sand storm. Men die and supplies dwindle. There's no way to walk out. There is unlikely to be any search parties. Aircraft designer Elliot has an idea to build a new aircraft out of the wreckage but Towns opposes it.

It's a remake of the 1965 movie. The premise has always been a bit ridiculous. The problem is that it's played for real. The unlikely scenario keeps diminishing the excitement. There are a few good actors and there is a bit of good tension among the group. I don't like Gibson and a little conflicted about Ribisi. The movie is generally forgettable.

Comparing this new version to the original would be comparing a farm horse to a thoroughbred from the Kentucky Derby. This version has new actors filling the shoes of established characters, and yet none have the quality to hold the story on course, causing it to crash like their airplane. The original had James Stewart and Richard Attenborough, both with performances worthy of academy awards and established the foundations of a true classic. In addition, the rest of the cast stood of themselves and even Ronald Fraser gave a most stirring performance as Sgt. Watson. Superior veteran actors like Peter Finch, Hardy Krüger, Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen, Christian Marquand, Dan Duryea and George Kennedy, all gave the original solid star power and allowed the Phonix to rise from the screen into the memory of it's viewers. This new version has Dennis Quaid as Frank Townes, sympathetic enough, but far less convincing of his character. All in all, the new version falls, like most remakes, well short of the original. Sorry, but this film should have been left in the desert with the remains of the fallen airplane. **

20 July 2005. Warning: Spoiler. This movie tries to take the high road to the traditional survival story, but ends up with several low points along the way. One of the saving components of this movie was the mostly outstanding performance of Giovanni Ribisi who plays a character that seems quite out of his past range of characters as well as stereotypical one, but one that Ribisi makes his own. There are number of intellectual and explanatory narrative scenes with a number of characters using a script that attempts to elevate the level of dialogue and plot. Yet the movie at the same time suffers from manipulative script devices, continuity problems, and actions by the characters that don't seem to make much sense. There is one scene where Ribisi climbs on top of their new plane during an electrical storm. There is another scene where it's night and then suddenly it's day. There are a number of scenes where time suddenly passes and, as if by magic, the survivors' problems are solved. Various equipment, food, water many vital components just appear mostly for the sake of the script. There are a number of superfluous script plots that are incorporated just for the sake of making the movie supposedly more interesting without really allowing the characters to develop and become much more personal. The characters are themselves somewhat stereotypical even though deliberate attempts are made not to be so. One of the great scenes is when Ribisi manages to take charge as well as the twist of his true nature of his employment (though the outcome of this scene is somewhat disappointment and quite predictable). There would have been more emotional intrigue if the survivors' discovered that not all of them could leave because of weight considerations. All in all, this mostly predictable movie thanks in part to the trailer is interesting with some nice cinematography shots, slow motion, and other special effects has its moments. Seven out of Ten Stars.

I'm not saying that I didn't get caught up in this a bit, but then I searched my memory for the original, which cam out when I was pretty young. It starred Jimmy Stewart, who was a good deal more balanced than Dennis Quaid. There is nothing new here, other than a Mongol hoard and Mongolia itself. The point, of course, is to build a plane from carcass of the older, larger one. I think what was missing was true characterization. While everyone seemed to wear their emotions on their sleeves, they were like worker ants with little visible personality. At the beginning, the captain would rather let everyone die than put forth some effort. The in-fighting seems really strained. The characters who wander off don't seem to have reason other than it's the right thing to do. There is an ugly scene with a nomadic tribe. As if the process of getting out of the desert wasn't bad enough. There is also a problem with wear and tear on the principles involved. They seem to stay pretty healthy despite their hard work and the hopeless nature of their predicament. I'm not saying it's a bad movie. It's just not different enough or well acted enough to make it any better than the first.

Before the TV series Lost made being stranded after a plane goes down hip, there was the Flight of the Phoenix. This is a modern remake of the 1965 original, and we follow a group of misfits who must play on one another's strength, and one man's ability to think out of the box, in order to make it out alive.

Dennis Quaid plays cocky pilot Frank Towns, who together with his co-pilot AJ (played by Tyrese Gibson), are tasked to fly a group of oil-riggers out of their just-closed outpost in the Gobi desert. Led by a lady called Kelly (Miranda Otto), this group of men seemed close to that ensemble lined up in Armageddon.

On a routine flight out of the desert, they encounter a humongous sandstorm, which Towns underestimates, and ended up with a broken plane in the middle of the desert. Well, you should know the rest, it's the usual distrust turned into camaraderie building opportunity, as the troupe gathers to build a new plane (hence called the Phoenix) by salvaging parts from the rubble. Sandstorms, electrical storms, and nasty nomads stand in their way, and it's kinda fun to see how our survivors overcome these challenges on their road to freedom.

Perhaps what appealed to me was how this film was shot. My eyes were constantly glued at how it made the desert so enchantingly sexy. The special effects too were great, from the sandstorm, to the usage of effects to bring out the whole "what-ifs" scenario. Slow motion techniques were used sparingly, but nonetheless effectively.

And I just got to raved about the music. You wouldn't think that Outkast's Hey Ya would make it to the film, but it did. But what takes the cake is the awesome use of Massive Attack's Angel during the entire scene when the group approaches a gang of nomads. Wow. I dig that song, and to witnessed it being used in that sequence, totally blows me away.

Don't expect too much from the plot, as it's as simple as it can be, with of course, some plot holes thrown in. Questions like food and water will ring throughout the movie, but I suppose one can gloss over the fine details and accept that they had enough to tide them through.

The Code 1 DVD contains deleted and extended scenes, and one almost 45 minute long making-of documentary titled the "Phoenix Diaries". It's one extremely detailed look at the making of the movie, without using too many footage from the final product.