If you are planning to see this movie, don't bother. It's a poor remake of a very good old movie. As a pilot, and from a pilot's point of view, the crash scene was completely unbelievable. If you aren't a pilot, you may enjoy the crash scenes, but I can tell you that the plane would have been in tiny pieces before it ever hit the ground. Once it hit the first sand dune, it would have broken up into small chunks after the first ground strike.
The interaction between the actors was forced, and never really developed.
The most unbelievable part came when yet another! freak sand storm comes up and the Phoenix is sitting on the sand and starts to lift up as if ready to fly. A few moments later, you see the fuselage of the original plane rolled over by the wind. Yet, the Phoenix doesn't get blown away (even though it's got wings (the fuselage doesn't)) and it's trying to fly as the wind picks up.
Next, we see our heroes sitting on the sand and the Phoenix is almost completely buried but the sand blown around by the sand storm.
Quite dramatically, the decision is made to dig the plane out of the sand. Give thought to trying to dig a 2 bedroom house out of a 10 foot drift of sand after spending a week or two in the desert with little or no water, a few cans of peaches and you have an idea of the task facing our heroes. To get an idea, just go out in your yard and dig a hole 2 feet deep and 2 feet square. It will take you a LONG time to do it. Imagine doing it under the conditions described above! Yeah, right! The next scene shows the Phoenix dramatically out of the sand, clean and undamaged, and ready to fly! Once again, yeah, right.
Finally, our heroes get the plane started with a hoard of Mongolian Marauders chasing them into flight. Of course, there is the perfunctory scene when a cable to the rudder is shot away by automatic rifle fire and the engineer has to climb back on the fuselage to dramatically fix it while keeping from falling off or getting shot by the hoard of horsemen. Ho hum.
And, of course, we all fly off into the sunset.
Get a copy of the Jimmy Stewart version. A much better film.
The interaction between the actors was forced, and never really developed.
The most unbelievable part came when yet another! freak sand storm comes up and the Phoenix is sitting on the sand and starts to lift up as if ready to fly. A few moments later, you see the fuselage of the original plane rolled over by the wind. Yet, the Phoenix doesn't get blown away (even though it's got wings (the fuselage doesn't)) and it's trying to fly as the wind picks up.
Next, we see our heroes sitting on the sand and the Phoenix is almost completely buried but the sand blown around by the sand storm.
Quite dramatically, the decision is made to dig the plane out of the sand. Give thought to trying to dig a 2 bedroom house out of a 10 foot drift of sand after spending a week or two in the desert with little or no water, a few cans of peaches and you have an idea of the task facing our heroes. To get an idea, just go out in your yard and dig a hole 2 feet deep and 2 feet square. It will take you a LONG time to do it. Imagine doing it under the conditions described above! Yeah, right! The next scene shows the Phoenix dramatically out of the sand, clean and undamaged, and ready to fly! Once again, yeah, right.
Finally, our heroes get the plane started with a hoard of Mongolian Marauders chasing them into flight. Of course, there is the perfunctory scene when a cable to the rudder is shot away by automatic rifle fire and the engineer has to climb back on the fuselage to dramatically fix it while keeping from falling off or getting shot by the hoard of horsemen. Ho hum.
And, of course, we all fly off into the sunset.
Get a copy of the Jimmy Stewart version. A much better film.