Last night Marcia and I watched “Flight of the Phoenix”, starring Dennis Quaid, Giovanni Ribisi, Miranda Otto, and Hugh Laurie. This was a remake of the 1965 Jimmy Stewart movie (which also starred Richard Attenborough).
An oil drilling company has set-up shop in Mongolia, but have had little luck. Ian “the Suit” (Hugh Laurie), one of the company’s businessmen, comes in and realizes they need to pack up and go home to stop the money loss. So in comes Captain Frank Towns (Dennis Quaid) and his plane to pick up the crew, led by Kelly (Miranda Otto). On their way to Beijing, they come across a storm and crash in the desert somewhere along the Mongolia-China border. One of the passengers of the plane is Elliott (Giovanni Ribisi), a “vacationing” plane designer, who claims he can help them build a working plane from salvaging parts of the wreckage.
Some of the things that happen to the crew while waiting seem a little unbelievable. But again, a rule that I always try to employ is that you have to suspend your disbelief when watching movies. It still turned out to be an entertaining movie. And actually, some of the acting was quite good. Giovanni Ribisi especially continues to show his range more and more.
If you are not afraid of remakes, this is a worthwhile rental.
August 29th, 2005 at 8:14 am
[…] Movie Remakes Got to thinking about this after watching “Flight of the Phoenix” last night. Why does Hollywood do them? Is it really just a matter that some filmmaker feels that he can do a better job, so talks the studio into saying yes? (Or that filmmaker does it on his own.) A good for instance is “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. Sure the new movie keeps more to the book. But the first was a cult classic. Why redo it? […]