Flight of the Phoenix- The Remake

[Shane Martin]

FYI: This is the remake to a 1965 Jimmy Stewart movie which is also available now for $10.

Dennis Quaid is a pilot sent to Mongolia to do an evacuation. The plane crashes and the story pretty much revolves around their rescue or attempts to rescue themselves. The success of this is going to depend on the interpersonal relationships and conflicts between the various characters. Unfornately for this remake the characters are paper thin and there is alot of clunky dialog. There is a few of these conflicts that should have been further explored and it's possible that people will interpret the remake as a 2 hour whinefest.

Sounds like a typical Summer action movie right?

As long as you are wiling to forgive the 2 main points above which is tough for some, then it's not a bad movie. It's quite fun. It may not exactly be worth buying for everyone but I'm sure a few of us bought it blind. I should have suspected it would turn out this way given the director whom did "Behind Enemy Lines".

I did enjoy the movie. It does work well if you plan to want to watch a good 2 hr forget it when your done adventure film.

Now the best part is that a remake for me forces me to watch the original.

6 out of 10.

The disc:
Dual Layer single sided disc

Video:
Top notch as far as I could tell. Excellent cinematography

Audio:
Bombastic at times. The DTS track is a winner here. the DD is less so but you won't/shouldn't be dissapointed in either.

Extras: Plenty but not time to go thru them.

Hopefully this week I'll buy/rent/see the original. It's released anamorphic widescreen for like $10.

[George Bellefontaine]

The original is hard to beat, Shane. I have watched it many many times, first on vhs tape and now on dvd. I will get the remake ( though I didn't think it was out as yet) but I am not expecting anything near as good as the original. It would be hard to beat this lineup of stars: James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch, Hardy Kruger, Ernest Borgnine, George Kennedy and Dan Durea. In the original the characters are well defined and believable.

[Nick M]

Rented It.

My opinion is pretty much identical to Shane's. The shallow acting is what hurt the film. Other than that, its an enjoyable film.

:3: out of :5:

I want to see the original now to compare.

[David Meek]

The original set the bar fairly high. It'll be interesting to see how the remake compares.

[Shane Martin]

It doesn't. It's not worth the effort to try to because the 6 rating I gave it will go down quite a bit. Viewed as a film and not a remake its worthy of a 6.

That's just me though.

From what I've heard about the original, its wayyyyyy better. For $10 I'll find out.

[Foxman]

Well I am generaly VERY easy to please and probably to a fault. I seldom critique movies but having prefaced this with that; this movie was boring at times. I thought the writing and editing left a lot to be desired. Probably more so the editing. We started to watch the some of the extra's but my wife was really wanting to get to sleep so I cut that short, but you could tell from some of the extended scenes that didnt make the cut that the writing is at least partly to blame.


Example of poor writing in the extended scene I saw was when the model airplane designer was coming up with the idea of having the people lay flat on the wings . The scene was stupid even by my standards as he explained that clearly someone wouldnt survive and thats why there was one short on his drawing, and then one guy gets shot later. I thought that scene was very melodramatic as well.

The scene that started me wondering about the editing was when Quades character went looking for the guy that wondered off, they sort of chopped that scene up and showed a glimpse of the guy who wondered off because the audiance had no way to know which guy it was since his character had no impact on the movie. Something about the way that scene was edited was nasty. Another was when they had to dig the Phoenix out, one minute the guy bends over to start and the next they are dragging that plane across the desert.

Sorry to be so critical and believe it or not I was OK with the movie but mainly because of the PQ and SQ. When I start noticing things like I mentioned then it MUST be a poor movie because I never notice.

I give it 1 out of 5 :Z

[Shane Martin]

Saw the original. It is way better. I still like the remake though.

[George Bellefontaine]

Watched the remake last night. Decided to rent it before buying and glad I did. While I didn't find the remake all that bad, it certainly doesn't compare well to the original. As stated by others here, the acting is pretty ho-hum. On the other hand, the cinematography was stunning and PQ of the dvd right up there. The sound had extreme low end in many scenes. The basic story line is the same for both films, but there are several character ( there wasn't a woman in the original) and plot line changes to modernize the setting for the remake. This will be a one time viewing for me so I won't be buying it after all. The original will sit all by its lonesome on the rack. :cry: