I don't know about you but although I enjoy modern cinema (1960's onwards) I cannot help but think of the magic of the past. A bigger issue with me is that we don't have the big action adventure type movies that we had even 20 years ago. In 1965 a movie slipped under cinema goers radar's and got little or no acclaim until it was first screened on television in the early 70's; that movie was Flight Of The Phoenix. The trouble with Flight Of The Phoenix in 1965 was that it was a movie that belonged to the 1950's in its style and story.

In 2004 having been remade Flight Of The Phoenix again slipped under under the radar the difference was that this time unfortunately it was much needed; and it was very much a movie of today. Flight Of The Phoenix has it all action, disaster, comedy, drama with fantastic performances from all cast and a scorching soundtrack; if this movie has passed you by then maybe now is a time to put that right.


In a oiling rig in the middle of the Mongolian desert things have gone bad, having located oil but been not actually been able to drill any the company decides to shut down the rig. Captain Robert Town and his co-pilot are sent in to pick up the workers and transport them to Beijing. The collection part is fine, but during the flight out they encounter a terrific sand storm; during this the plane crashes into the most remote part of the desert without life for over 200 miles.

Just prior to the crash the planes transmitter broke off the plane leaving them without means of communicating with the outside world. Worse still they soon discover that they are less alone than they realised; Mongolian bandits are closing on on them wanting to loot the plane. As things become more desperate and crew members are lost the sinister Elliot comes into the frame with the idea of building a new plane out of the wreckage of the old one; but will they run out of food or people before the construction is complete.


CAST


Dennis Quaid .... Frank Towns
Tyrese Gibson .... A.J.
Giovanni Ribisi .... Elliott
Miranda Otto .... Kelly
Tony Curran .... Rodney
Sticky Fingaz .... Jeremy (as Kirk Jones)
Jacob Vargas .... Sammi
Hugh Laurie .... Ian

I had not seen the original movie for 20 odd years, but it was a tale that remained implanted in my brain; it was such an emotional and gripping movie that you could not help but enjoy, and more or less everybody that saw it did. As a result I expected very little from this remake, I have seen very few good remakes and was in two minds to not even bother with this in case it ruined those memories of the past. But to my complete surprise I find myself saying that not only was it as good as the original, but with the hindsight of certain revelations since the original it's actually a much better movie. That being said I did hope over to Play to purchase the original straight after watching the remake.

Some movies you find yourself not liking until you get a sizeable way into the film, with Phoenix your already into the thick of it from the minute the credits begin to roll. The reason for this is that the initial story prior to the crash is a continued roll with a pre crash runtime of about 6 minutes. So in that time you have been made familiar with the plane as well as several members of the crew. By the time the plane has crashed you have already decided who you like and who you don't and you can clearly see who the "problem" characters are going to be.

I have been a bit despondent with Dennis Quaid of late, he seemed to be incapable of working on anything other than a crappy teen chick flick. His role as Frank Towns was a refreshing, a certainly more in line with his roles of the 80's; he is instantly likeable if not a bit tetchy. Giovanni Ribisi plays suitably sleezy contrast to the respected Towns; his character of Elliot is always deep in thought thinking beyond the realms of the others, though his intentions are never clear till near the very end. The rest of the cast including Miranda Otto and Hugh Laurie all have equal billing and positioning in the movie; each one of the cast members displaying the range of emotions you can expect when potentially facing death.

One thing that I absolutely love about the movie is the power that sound is given over the movie. Explosions, crashing, the storms and gunshots sound better than I have ever heard in a movie. At times the dialogue plays second fiddle to the music and sound but this does not reflect badly it just gives the movie more power and depth. On the subject of music the score for the film is incredibly well planned out, I'm amazed in fact that a big deal was not made out of the soundtrack. Each piece of music is an exact alternate end contrast to the last. 70's classic Gimme Some Lovin' is followed by Outkast's Hey Ya (which is played in its entirety), and from Hey Ya we fall into a piece of stunning chilled Ibiza music that sits alongside a particularly harrowing death.

Death is an area that stops this movie falling into the family category, but I'd still be tempted to let children see this as in death the movie is quite educational. From how you would look after a night out in the sandstorms, to what a Mongolian bandit might do to your body if they found you dead in the desert. I appreciate this might sound quite graphic, but its not something that would cause nightmares, nothing worse than the characters melting at the end of Raiders Of The lost Ark anyway.

Flight Of The Phoenix was an amazing surprise a movie I could not stop watching for its entire 110 minutes runtime, you learn so much about desert life and the effects it can have, water rationing etc. In fact the dialogue is littered with educational things that you may or may not have known, certainly it would be good for a child especially when teaching them the value of seemingly valueless things. Phoenix is a fantastic action packed and refreshing change from the type action adventure movies we are subjected to nowadays.

Special Features

An audio commentary featuring the director and crew is mainly quite boring; however its quite humorous to hear the trouble they had to create storms when needed and how they worked against unexpected storms; in fact you can hear the vitriol in director John Moores voice as he enters into almost dementia when discussing these scenes.

The deleted scenes are a typical "dead" offering of bits that were re-cut and replaced in the movie or theoretically deleted, its annoying though as the commentary is not removable and some of the conversations of the characters you might actually want to hear.

Extended scenes is as stated really, no real comments to make on this and the reasons for cutting these scenes are obvious.

Phoenix Diaries is a featurette that shows in depth the issues of filming in a less than desirable location and more importantly the problems with working with sand. Miranda Otto suffers quite badly here receiving so much sand in her eyes that filming is stopped for two days while she is hospitalised.

Flight Of The Phoenix is available from Play.com for just £5.99.