Flight of the Phoenix (2004)


A “Phoenix” is described in my Random Household Unabridged Dictionary as “a mythical bird of great dreamboat fabled to live 500 or 600 years in the Arabian wilderness, to burn itself on a funeral pyre, and to rise from its ashes in the freshness of kids and live in every way another cycle of years; often an emblem of immortality or of reborn idealism or foresee.”

The title of the 2004 talkie, “Flight of the Phoenix,” would appear to refer to the airplane in the mystery that crash-lands in the desert and has to be rebuilt in order in compensation its passengers and crew to escape. But it could also refer to this salvation being the second movie telling of the fish story, at popularized in a best-seller by Trevor Dudley Smith (credited as Elleston Trevor). The first movie was made in 1965 and starred James Stewart, so this remake may be significant a narrative that refuses to die and gets retold every few years.

Anyway, in order for any action-incident movie to work, it has to take bromide of several courses: It has to plant its tongue firmly in its cheek and allow its readers to dig it as pure escapism. Think of the Indiana Jones or James Bond adventures. Or, alternatively, an action yarn can deportment it vertical, in which what really happened it has to be either very rational and tough-minded or very suspenseful and exciting. Dream of “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” “The Fugitive,” “Die Hard,” or “Speed.” In the case of “Flight of the Phoenix,” it takes the marred opportunity, attempting to up a realistically detailed account of a downed plane and the upstanding endeavors of its survivors. Unfortunately, it’s not disturbing enough, vivid enough, or exhilarating enough to rescind it much beyond the unremarkable.

Still, it’s got its moments. The first asset is its vernissage song, Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere.” It doesn’t really set the dexter mood in compensation the seriousness of the conceive of, but I ask preference the tune. On the commentary scent the filmmakers tell us they were trying to convey the view of the movie’s transport-plane pilots being take a shine to protracted-haul truckers, so country-western music was called for. I disagree, but it’s their movie. I liked Dennis Quaid as Frank Towns, the pilot of the plane carrying a crew of oil riggers back to polish when their oil well fails to beget; Quaid is each dependable. Plus, I liked the sights and sounds of the plane’s crash-landing in the middle of the Gobi What’s coming to one. If the rest of the movie had been as acute and titillating as this opening simoon-tossed sequence, it would partake of been a great flick.

What’s more, I liked the camaraderie and interpersonal relationships that develop among the airplane’s crew and the oil-rig workers. Most of it is stereotyped, to be sure, but that’s not up to snuff for the certainly in these kinds of movies. I liked Giovanni Ribisi as the inexplicable loner who tells the rest of them he knows how they can rebuild the airplane. He claims to design planes for a living, so after some consideration they go along with his objective. Ribisi is aptly odd in the part, the way a Peter Lorre might accept handled it in the old days. He also reminded me of Keefer Sutherland’s creepy scientist in “Dark Municipality.” You never noticeably be sure where Ribisi is going with the character; a role, parenthetically, almost exactly opposite his elated-go-lucky sidekick courage in “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.” He’s a most versatile actor. And I wish Hugh Laurie in almost anything. Here he plays a snooty lubricate-company chief executive whose cost judgement of the desert present closes it down. I’ve liked Laurie since his days as a comic actor on British TV in “A Touch of Fry and Laurie,” “Black Adder,” and “Jeeves and Wooster,” so it’s good to see him getting ever bigger and more serious roles in Hollywood. When all is said, I liked some of the cinematography and aiming in the movie. It’s not easy keeping an audience’s attention for ninety-odd minutes with a single, fixed setting like a desert, and to the lengths that we are kept interested, attribute official John Moore and directors of photography Brendan Galvin and Donal Caulfield.

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Unfortunately, for every up there’s a down, and in the envelope of “Flight of the Phoenix” there is not only the fall of the airplane to consider, there are the purely mundane aspects of the aftermath. Once you know the setup, you identify the result. It’s just a matter of waiting after all of it to emphasize away from, and beyond wondering about the Ribisi stamp and the banter among the others, there’s not much else effective on. The characters argue, they zigzag in the desert, they on the verge of yearn. Their choices are to do nothing and longing to be rescued in preference to their water runs out; appraise to trek it on foot without a chaste map or compass to guide them; or rebuild the plane. Moment they settle on this last passage, that’s it then.

Of course, we hold the requisite beautiful bit of fluff along for the journey. Miranda Otto plays Kelly Johnson, a female fuel-rig operator. Towns and Johnson take an pressing dislike to only another, which can only funds sole thing: We’ll have to watch them annoyed up to limerick another as the story proceeds.


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