Airspeed (1998)
When wealthy executive Raymond Stone sends out his private plane to pick up his spoiled teenage daughter, Nicole, and a pair of his top-ranking employees, disaster strikes. While the jet flies through an electrical storm, the pilot and other passengers are incapacitated, and Nicole is left on her own to keep the plane in the air, guided by an air traffic controller. Can the irresponsible and panic-stricken teen find a way to land the jet?
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Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.
Thanks for the memories!
Absolutely Fantastic
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Nicole Stone (Elisha Cuthbert) is a bratty 13 year old who got kicked out of another private school to everyone's frustration. Her father Raymond (Joe Mantegna) is a computer tycoon. She's being flown back on the company 727 jet. A lightning strike hits the plane. The crew is electrocuted and explosive decompression knock everybody out. The autopilot turns on. Nicole wakes up to find a near impossible situation.There are lots of ridiculous technical ideas going on here. It puts 'Executive Decision' to shame. To be fair, the movie is smart enough to reference 'Airport 1975'. The special effects are on the cheap side and so is most the production. The most interesting part is Elisha Cuthbert as a child actress. The rest is a weak action thriller.
Many movies have earned the title of "Worst..." acting, directing, writing, casting, or special effects. Well...this one wins in ALL categories. The premise is preposterous. The acting is horrendous. The special effects are non-existent -- and covered up by badly-lit night-time scenes. It's a good thing Elisha Cuthbert grew into a great body, because she couldn't get far with the level of acting here. Joe Mantegna looks like he's trying to find the emergency exit -- from the film! All in all, this would have been a great "After School Movie" designed to empower tweener girls that they, too, can solve all the problems in the world -- world peace, landing airliners, well you get the idea. If I were Joe Mantegna, I'd remove this film from my resume'.
Rated it 1 only because 0 not available. The girl is pathetically pathetic, the parents are pathetic, the tower crew is pathetic, the pilot of the tanker is pathetic. Ever seen a plane being refueled from the SIDE? The boom is strong enough to support a man? Why not send a pilot to land the crippled plane? Tanker planes don't need indicators or controls, or a co-pilot? I only saw the second half, so I had fun trying to figure out what happened; I speculated that everybody but the girl ate the fish. I expected Paul Ford to come in to talk her down, and fall out of the tower. I kept waiting for Steven Segal. I wanted Montegna to apologize for all the time away from home with the Bureau. I figured the girl would be as effective using the bat on the controls as she was on the boom. But the best part of all is the perfect stop, nowhere near the run-out area, even though the plane came in far too fast, and she took f-o-r-e-v-e-r to throttle back and pop the flaps. Thank somebody for great brakes. Movie must have been made with the intent of it being a tax shelter. If you have the choice, pick the swine flu--it would be less painful.
Bad acting, bad writing, dumb plot. The only reason to watch this is teen hottie Elisha Cuthbert. Even a competent actor like Joe Mantegna can't make the lines he's forced to say sound believable. His reaction to his daughter's plight is too calm and business like, as if he was told his luggage would be slightly delayed. Concentrate on Elisha and ignore the rest.