The mid-60’s was a high-point for daring stories of adventurous deeds in exotic locations, often based on the airport novels of Alistair McLean and his ilk. Plundering the form is John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines) who remakes James Stewart’s 1965 classic, Flight of the Phoenix. On a lesser budget, we get hotshot Captain Dennis Quaid at an oil rig deep in the Gobi Desert. Before you can say Dalandzadgad, his plane crashes with a disparate cargo of desperate people, fighting to survive with little food and less water. Their chances aren’t good although one man (Giovanni Ribisi) has a plan to rebuild the ruined aircraft and fly them to safety. Pity he’s several strawberries short of a punnet.

Handsome camerawork is one of the few highlights in a film that holds so few surprises. Moore arranges a sorry bunch of clichés to go about the routine emotions of such business: fear, fight, flight. In doing so he manages to squander every moment of tension the situation creates. Pity poor Miranda Otto given the thankless task of being one of the boys without a shred of feminine mystique. Quaid generates some manliness but his performance is but wallpaper behind Ribisi at his most affected and irritating. One advantage this update has over the original is digital effects. Rather convincing sandstorms are whipped up at a moments notice to bury the wreckage, over and over. It’s also a convenient backdrop for scenes of savage locals and inspirational speeches that such movies pivot upon. There’s enough flight in the Phoenix to distract for an hour or so but frankly, you’d be better entertained with the original on DVD. 

// COLIN FRASER