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Movie Review - Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane (2007)
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(What this rating means)
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| Director: |
Scott Thomas |
| Starring: |
David Chisum, Kristen Kerr, Kevin J. O'Connor, Richard Tyson, and Erick Avari |
| Rated: |
Unrated |
| Length: |
89 minutes |
| Genre: |
Comedic Horror |
| Tagline: |
Un-Dead at 30,000 Feet. |
| Studio: |
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| Website: |
Flight of the Living Dead |
| Release: |
October 2, 2007 (DVD premiere) |
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PLOT
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Nothing spices up a transatlantic flight to Paris quite like a virus accidentally leaking and turning people into zombies. Forget worrying about surviving an entire flight fueled
on little more than a mini-bag of peanuts and a dixie cup full of coke, this will give you bigger fish to fry! Or zombies. Nothing spells bad news quicker than the letters b, a,
d, n, e, w, and s, but a scientist on the run from the CIA can handle the metaphorical aspects of that term by smuggling a contaminated body onto the flight, and that's
exactly what we've got here.
The plane becomes an incubator for a quickly growing army of the undead. With a zombie invasion spreading through the cabin, only a handful of actors you've never heard of remains
to fight off their fellow infected travelers and land the plane before it's too late. Zombies on a Plane ensue.
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JOHNNY'S TAKE
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In the world of post-9/11 airport security, I find it a little hard to believe that a contaminated body could be smuggled on a commercial flight, along with a dude in a Hasmet suit
carrying a machine gun. And by "Hasmet suit" I mean "a cheaply-made Halloween suit from Wal-Mart." But hey, that's the premise we're dealt, and we really have no choice
but to play the hand. Arguing logic in a film that revolves around zombies running loose on a plane seems somewhat counter-productive, doesn't it?
It says a lot about a movie when the most recognizable actor is Mohinder's dad from Heroes. Basically, the film couldn't get any famous people, so it had to cast
people who looked like famous people. You know you're in trouble when you have to seek out a Matthew Lawrence wannabe. Every time I see Richard Tyson in a movie I immediately
ask, "Isn't that the Cobra Kai dude (Martin Kove) from The Karate Kid?" Then I head to IMDb to see that nope, it's good ol' Buddy Revell from Three O'Clock High.
Poor guy. How sad is it to be mistaken for "Cobra Kai dude"? That's gotta sting.
Ah, the Karate Kid. I remember when I was young I was absolutely floored by the news that Pat Morita had absolutely no martial arts experience. How could this
be??? Mr. Miyagai could wax on and wax off with the best of them! However, if I happen upon the movie these days it's painfully obvious the guy had no idea what he
was doing. You gotta love the blissfully ignorant innocence of youth.
Let's face it; you're either on board with this film from the moment you read the premise or you're not. Not a lot of middle room here. So with that in mind, no, this is not
what most people would technically classify as a good movie. The average movie fan is not going to be sucked into the story and blown away in surprise at how awesome it is.
If you love stupid zombie movies, however, then there may be a little something here for your cheese-starved enjoyment.
The bulk of the Flight of the Living Dead's runtime consists of blood and guts flying everywhere. It's one ridiculous scene after another involving zombie mayhem. Did
you know that airplane floors are made out of cardboard through which zombies can effortlessly punch? Amazing stuff. There's not a whole lot of excitement or originality that
accompanies the zombie carnage, but hey, there is plenty of fun to be had at the movie's cheese and illogic factors.
For example, can anybody explain to me why the fugitive on the plane was considered to be so bad when his greatest offense was robbing the Russian mafia of $35 million,
stealing their jet, and crashing it? The FBI dude tells the story and then replies, "But we finally caught up to him." Um, yeah, it's THE RUSSIAN MAFIA!!!!! Forgive my
callousness for the inability to care less if somebody steals $35 million from them.
What's next? "He robbed Al-Qaeda of $35 million and killed Osama Bin Laden, but WE GOT HIM!" I think I'd slap this one under "let it go."
You also have to love the famous golfer in first class who's holding his putter and cleaning it. Yeah right. Are golf clubs allowed as a carry-on these days? I'm thinking in
the negative on that one. But let's give it up to foreshadowing! Is there any doubt that the club will later be used upside a zombie's brain? Unfortunately, the movie
dropped the ball in the area of bad one-liners. I was hoping for a "You have really teed me off" here and an "It's time to kick some zombie putt" there, but nope, we get nada.
Ah well, you get what you pay for, and I sure hope you don't pay a lot to see this one. I also don't recommend that you watch it alone. Bad horror films are only truly
hor-larious (they induce so much unintentional laughter that you almost have to label them comedic) when you've got somebody to join in the ridicule.
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ODDS & ENDS
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- The last time I tried to access the movie's website I got a "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded" error message. Try it for
yourself!
- Characters in the movie mention that there is talk of a new strain of "malaria virus." Anybody with a minimal working knowledge of human diseases knows that malaria is
caused by sporozoan parasites, not a virus.
- Richard Tyson was in The Visitation with Edward Furlong who was in 3 Blind Mice with Chiwetel Ejiofor who is in American Gangster with Josh Brolin
who was in Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon.
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MAMA'S APPROVAL
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It shouldn't come as a shock to the system for me to reveal that this one ain't exactly mama's type of movie. There are "f" bombs, sexual situations, and LOTS of blood and
gore. I can't remember if there is any nudity or not. I know there were a couple of scenes where a guy and girl went to the bathroom to get it on, but I don't recall
nudity. At any rate, you shouldn't let your kids see this one.
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TRAILER COMPARISON
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I really don't see how anybody could be misled by the trailer. It's zombies ... ON A PLANE! What were you expecting? Eloquent prose and a labyrinthine plot?
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THE GIST
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Read the plot synopsis and my review. It should be obvious whether or not this is for you.
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