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 | Flight Of The Phoenix Director: John Moore Rating: M Now showing  Having only just seen the original, I was even more curious to see how a contemporary filmmaker handled what some of us may regard as a rather incredulous premise. Thankfully I can say this remake doesn't so much disgrace itself as much as it sets itself a tough task to gain acceptance and credibility amongst purists. In its favour, much of the Boy's Own Adventure plot has been retained here: only the characters and dialogue have been updated. A group of oil workers lead by Kelly (Miranda Otto), on the way to Beijing after their Mongolian-based rig was closed down, strike a massive dust storm that engulfs their heavily overloaded, dual-engine plane and causes it to crash spectacularly into the Gobi Desert. Lives are lost, but most onboard survive and are now faced with a dilemma: they're in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of miles off course, with no radio very little food and even less water. Taking charge is pilot Frank Towns (Dennis Quaid), closely followed by his co-pilot TJ (Tyrese). Both these men are instantly unlikeable due to their ruthless, bullying approach towards the others, but after a few days of being faced with a hopeless situation they appear to weaken and concede total defeat. That is, until one of the passengers, geeky power-crazed German aeroplane designer Elliot (Giovanni Ribisi), comes up with the outlandish idea of rebuilding the wreckage of the plane into a single-engine aircraft and flying it out of there. Somehow everyone is unanimously convinced by the idea and they all immediately set about the task, knowing darn well that having to work will mean that their water supply will be used up much quicker, therefore shortening what time they may have should the plan fail and it's back to having to wait for any miraculous help to arrive. Despite there being plenty of hiccups to ensure that there's rarely a lull in the action, the project does appear to go remarkably smoothly, especially given the soaring heat and other not-so-perfect working conditions. But that's okay, because the real suspense here now hinges on whether or not the plane can actually fly. Quite frankly, even the more cynical side of me was still hanging in there right to the very end. Though not thoroughly convinced of the overall plausibility of 'Flight Of The Phoenix' per se, I can see where a lot of the attraction lies. Being set in a great big harsh desert, and with the players having very few provisions to work with, meant that little was left to hide behind in terms of too many special effects and other distractions. Sure, the cast assembled here may not be as notable as messieurs James Stewart, Peter Finch, Richard Attenborough and Ernest Borgnine, but they in no way let the story down either.  | |
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