REVIEWED - FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Robert Aldrich's The Flight of the Phoenix, in which James Stewart and some character actors attempted to reassemble their plane after crashing in the desert, was a decent boys' entertainment bolted so sturdily together that, 40 years after its release, it continues to entertain TV viewers on rainy bank holidays.
This remake from John Moore, the Dundalk-born director of Behind Enemy Lines, shows evidence of the same no-nonsense professionalism - the flying sequences are suitably nausea-inducing the cinematography fairly blisters the screen. But, perhaps because we now expect our heroism to be heavily flavoured with irony, it feels a bit thin and more than a bit corny.
No blame should attach to Dennis Quaid who, in the Stewart role, once again demonstrates how comfortably he is shouldering middle-age. Dennis is forced to take charge when, after being caught in a sandstorm, his plane ditches in the Gobi Desert.
The usual cadre of single-adjective misfits - snooty (Hugh Laurie); inscrutable (Kevork Malikyan); feisty (Miranda Otto); creepy (Giovanni Ribisi) - begins by squabbling childishly. Then, because a film in which everyone died of dehydration would be no fun, they gradually come together to engineer escape. Under the guidance of Ribisi, who, absurdly conveniently, is an aircraft designer, they start knocking together bits of debris to create a rickety flying machine. Before everything goes right, everything goes wrong.
Ribisi, one of the few actors with more gammon in his backpack than Sean Penn, must have been genuinely upset to discover so little scenery into which his teeth might be sunk. Undaunted, he has died his hair blonde, donned sunglasses and adopted the straight-backed posture of a man with an uncomfortable lumbar condition. Without his horrible performance,Flight of the Phoenix might not have achieved the status of a masterpiece, but you would be less tempted to throw vegetables at it.
