Fly Wellman Airlines!
Hello and welcome aboard Wellman Airlines! I am your captain, David, and today we are going to fly the mostly unfriendly skies as we take a look at “Airplane Movies!”
I didn’t take my first flight until I was in college and that was on an 18-seater out of Logan. They asked everyone how much they weighed as they got on so they could “even things out!” It’s still the smallest plane on which I’ve ever flown.
I’ve been on at least two flights where the passengers cheered after a safe landing. I believe one of those planes was hit by lightning at some point.
I’m not much of a flier, but I have flown to Alaska, Hawaii, Ireland, and England so I tend to make my flights count.
I haven’t flown since COVID, and now that I’m extremely claustrophobic and doors seem to blow off planes during every other flight, I don’t see myself getting on another airplane anytime soon.
So instead, I watched a bunch of airplane movies to remind me of what I’ve been missing.
Turns out I really don’t want to be on any of these flights either!
There are several airplane movies I will NOT cover today, including Top Gun, Top Gun: Maverick, Memphis Belle, Air America, Operation Dumbo Drop, Passengers, Passenger 57, Non-Stop, Snakes on a Plane, Soul Plane, Firefox, Sully and Die Hard 2.
It’s not that I didn’t like some of these, I just wanted to keep today’s list relatively short, and I think you’ve listened to me complain about Top Gun & Top Gun: Maverick quite enough at this point.
I also won’t be including Final Destination, but that’s because there is a huge Final Destination episode coming soon, so I’ll skip it for now.
That is one plane you definitely do NOT want to be on.
We’re switching gears a bit today and have divided these airplane movies into sub-genres for this episode.
Think of it as a charcuterie board of airplane movies.
Since we can’t ever have total chaos here at Cinema Wellman, the genres will be presented in alphabetical order.
Air Wellman is owned by the same company as OCD Airlines.
We will begin with the Airplane Action Movies, which means we’ll be starting with the cheese course.
Action:
We have three films in the action category and they’re all preposterous, especially in the way they spit in the eye of physics. All three are actually downright silly if you put even a bit of thought into what’s happening.
Executive Decision (1996)
R/133 min/IMDb: 6.5/directed by Stuart Baird
Marla Maples Trump!?!?! Wow! I was not expecting that!
Steven Seagal’s early death in this film was reportedly due to wanting him out of the production because he was such an asshole.
Seagal physically assaulted John Leguizamo after declaring himself “the law” on the set. Leguizamo showed up early the day of Seagal’s death scene just so he could watch him “die.”
Halley Berry refused to be in this until she was offered $1 million dollars. I hope she spent that money wisely.
The testosterone fueled banter is unbelievably 90’s. This whole movie is. It reeks of 90’s action movies. They were all cookie cutter movies with paint by number scripts. The dialogue is positively laughable with so many weak attempts at humor.
The hookup between the 747 and the Stealth bomber has to be impossible. Especially since they seem to be making it up how to do it as they go along.
There are a few suspenseful sequences aboard the plane, and I give the passengers a lot of credit. They were unbelievably calm during most of the flight.
Before the gunfire, that is. Then there are an awful lot of bullets being fired on this plane before a hole is blown in the side of it. Shouldn’t that have happened right away? Like after the first 100 bullets?!
I would have been killed by the hijackers right away due to my insistence that the beverage service is not interrupted.
It’s an Oceanic Airlines plane! Just like in “Lost!”
And…the stewardess helps land the plane, which is always a treat!
Air Force One (1997)
R/124 min/IMDb: 6.5/directed by Wolfgang Petersen
Gotta love that the terrorists are given a guided tour of Air Force One at the start of the movie! Let’s make sure they’re handed ALL the secrets. Check all reality at the door for this one.
IMDb: “Communist radicals hijack Air Force One with the U.S. President and his family on board. The Vice President negotiates from Washington D.C., while the President, a veteran, fights to rescue the hostages on board.”
Right.
Once again, there are some pretty good action/suspense sequences in this movie, but if you think about it for even a second, the entire thing falls apart.
Gary Oldman chews up ALL of the scenery on this plane. It’s borderline comical. I think it actually crosses the border.
Can you really fire a shit-ton of bullets on an airplane without instant catastrophe?
The airplane comes to an epic comic end. CGI in 1997 was pretty sad looking. Can planes do cartwheels on the surface of the ocean?
“Get off my plane!”
This was nominated for TWO Oscars?!?
Con Air (1997)
R/115 min/IMDb: 6.9/directed by Simon West
There are so many things wrong with this movie, but it has to be included in a list of airplane movies. I had to include it because it’s terrible and it’s compelling at the same time.
This is a ludicrous mess from start to finish. There is no debating that.
Terrible accent on Nic Cage. One of the worst in film history. It borders on Gump.
Much of this is offensive and racist and homophobic and 90s.
How on earth are ALL of those prisoners on the same plane? I mean, how incompetent do they want us to think law enforcement is?!
SOOOOOOOO many bullets being fired on the plane!!!!
Wait! This was ALSO nominated for TWO Oscars?!? What the hell was going on in the 90’s?!
Comedy:
The next genre is comedy, and these comedies are funny on purpose, not like those action movies just discussed.
Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines
Or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes (1965)
G/138 min/IMDb: 7.0/directed by Ken Annakin
IMDb: “Hoping to push Britain to the forefront of aviation, a London publisher organizes an international air race across the English Channel, but most contend with two entrants vying for his daughter, as well as national rivalries and cheating”
This G rated adventure taking place in 1910 is a delightful family movie filled with slapstick humor and farce.
This would be a great double feature with 1969’s Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies which is pretty much this same movie, but with cars.
These flying machines are great fun, and this is a colorful and breezy flight with comic pitfalls at every turn.
This was Oscar nominated for Best Writing, and I get that nomination. But NOT all those others!
Airplane! (1980)
PG/88 min/IMDb:7.7
directed by Jim Abrahams/David Zucker/Jerry Zucker
I have spoken about Airplane! on more than a couple of occasions because it’s simply one of the funniest movies of all time.
Airplane! spawned countless parody comedies, but none of them could ever match what Airplane! did.
There are so many catchphrases in our pop-culture world that come from this movie, and that, of course, can measure cultural impact.
One of the reasons I believe it works so well is that Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers cast veteran actors in key roles who had NEVER done comedy before during their illustrious careers.
Robert Stack, Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges, and of course Leslie Nielsen are all hilariously funny especially since we never saw them in comedies before this.
Airplane! should be seen every couple of years as a reminder of how parody comedies should be made. It’s not an easy thing to do, that’s for sure.
And I can’t talk about Airplane! without mentioning 1957’s Zero Hour! which is the drama on which the comedy Airplane! is based.
Some of the same exact lines are delivered! It’s absolutely amazing to watch this after seeing Airplane! so many times!
Abrahams and the Zucker’s BOUGHT the rights to Zero Hour! because they intended on using so much of the story word for word!
That’s a tremendous double feature if you can ever put it together.
Drama (Disaster):
Airport (1970)
G/137 min/IMDb: 6.6/directed by George Seaton
This was a biggie. This was a major deal.
IMDb: “A bomber on board an airplane, an airport almost closed by snow, and various personal problems of the people involved.”
Airport was the first of many all-star “Disaster Movies” (that will be an upcoming episode at some point!), and arguably the best of the bunch.
Nominated for TEN Academy Awards (including Best Picture), winner of one Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, Helen Hayes, and the cast is a “Who’s Who?” of 70s stars.
Jackie Bisset, George Kennedy, Maureen Stapleton, Dean Martin, Burt Lancaster…. fantastic!
I actually thought Lee Grant was also in this one, but that was Airport ‘77!
Some of it may seem dated (it is 54 years old), but it’s still a taut thriller with some very tense moments.
It’s melodramatic, but the melodrama is extremely enjoyable. The music is also tremendous.
It’s one of the first films to ever gross over $100 million dollars, which is why there were three sequels (including the one where the stewardess is flying the plane!).
Now that I think of it, Airport and Airplane! would also be a great double feature!
Drama (Regular):
The Aviator (2004)
PG-13/170 min/IMDb: 7.5/directed by Martin Scorsese
IMDb: “A biopic depicting the early years of legendary director and aviator Howard Hughes’ career from the late 1920s to the mid 1940s.”
The Aviator was nominated for 11 Oscars and won 5 including Film Editing, Cinematography, and Best Supporting Actress (the wonderful Cate Blanchett).
Howard Hughes was an interesting person to say the least and Leonardo DiCaprio does a good job capturing that complicated persona. I go back and forth on Leo, but this was a solid performance.
If you haven’t seen The Aviator, I definitely recommend it. There are worse Scorsese movies out there.
I mean that. Much worse.
Flight (2012)
R/138 min/IMDb: 7.3/directed by Robert Zemeckis
Some of these Airplane Movies take place almost entirely aboard the airplanes, while others could be considered Airplane Movie adjacent.
Flight would be one of the latter.
IMDb: “Troubling questions arise after airline pilot Whip Whitaker makes a miracle landing after a mid-air catastrophe.”
The pilot is played by the phenomenal Denzel Washington which automatically makes this film worth watching.
Washington earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Flight, which was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay.
It may not accurately portray the physics of flying an airplane, but many alcoholics said it very accurately portrays addiction.
The flight sequences are thrilling, the courtroom scenes are compelling, and Washington delivers as he always does.
Catch this Flight.
Wow. That was corny! :)
Thriller:
Flightplan (2005)
PG-13/98 min/IMDb: 6.3/directed by Robert Schwentke
Adding Denzel Washington to a film elevates it to another level as I’ve just mentioned. The same is true for Jodie Foster.
There are a few holes in this Flightplan, but Foster’s performance makes you forget about a majority of them.
IMDb: “A bereaved woman and her daughter are flying home from Berlin to America. At 30,000 feet, the child vanishes, and nobody will admit she was ever on the plane.”
I’m a fan of paranoia thrillers where the main character is thought to be deranged because no one believes their story.
There are some really nice twists and turns along the way although the bad guy is telegraphed by the casting of the part.
I looked past that and concentrated on Foster’s performance as a desperate mother looking for her daughter nobody believes exists.
Red Eye (2005)
PG-13/85 min/IMDb: 6.5/directed by Wes Craven
IMDb: “A woman is kidnapped by a stranger on a routine flight. Threatened by the potential murder of her father, she is pulled into a plot to assist her captor in a political assassination.”
We love political assassination movies here at Cinema Wellman! We also love Rachel McAdams!
Wes Craven directs what seemingly begins as a romantic comedy before transforming into a thriller and ending as a horror movie.
I’m always intrigued by movies that do this. It doesn’t always work, of course, but I appreciate the effort.
Oscar winner Cillian Murphy is deliciously evil after appearing to be a sweet guy at the start.
Both Red Eye and Flightplan were made in 2005 and they’re both quite entertaining and would make a fun double feature.
I did just that on Sunday night!
Now please extinguish all smoking materials and return your tray tables to their upright position as this is a wrap from here at Wellman Airlines.
Thank you for flying with us, and we hope you’re aboard next week as we take a look at the Best & Worst films screened here during the month of April.
Until then, take care.
