Flight Of The Phoenix review

Remaking an overlooked fave like Robert Aldrich's Flight Of The Phoenix 40 years later is a better gambit than Hollywood retreads of too familiar tales like Get Carter or The Stepford Wives. Unless, of course, you make all the same mistakes.

After a sandstorm knocks their plane from the sky, Captain Frank Towns (Dennis Quaid) and several oil riggers are stuck in the Gobi Desert with no hope of escape... Except the desperate plan of crash survivor Elliott (Giovanni Ribisi), a peculiar aircraft designer hiding a secret.

Ribisi, barely recognisable as a platinum blond, channels an excellent B-movie perf, and while a leathery Quaid is one-note it's the right one for this story. However, two spot-on turns don't (re)make a movie that's hampered by several impossible logic gaffes. Flight is like the muzak version of an old song - - pleasant enough to momentarily distract, but completely forgettable once gone.