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Airport ’77 Review

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It’s time for another Airport movie and once again the actual airport is really nowhere to be found. That’s got to be the biggest weakness of the series at this point because you would think that by now they would have gone back to the roots right? Seriously this one barely has to do with an airplane at this point since it functions as a boat for most of the movie. Still, it does end up trying something more interesting than the second film and I would actually say this was a reasonable title. It certainly doesn’t beat the first film but I would end up giving it the edge over the second one.

The movie starts by introducing us to the characters. They’re mostly rather annoying as you would expect. You have a lady who seems unhappy with her current relationship and likes to flirt with everyone while also using blackmail. She refuses to let her guy talk to anyone though so this way she can be in complete control at all times. You have the Captain who is at least a good character even if there isn’t much to him beyond being the captain. Then there are the group of terrorists who have decided to take over the plane to get rich with the exotic artwork on board. You’ve got a doctor, the wife and kid of the Ceo who built the plane, and of course Patroni. Unfortunately Patroni’s role here is really small.

So the group get on the plane and prepare for a nice flight but things go wrong when the hijackers take over and the whole thing crashes real quick into the ocean. Now you may think that’s better than crashing on land…and that’s true. However, they are sinking fast and it is looking like it will be very difficult to exit the plane in time. If the heroes don’t think of something soon then it’s all going to be over. All their dreams and goals will be gone like the waves. Can they survive long enough for the plane to be found or are they going to drown?

Particularly with the recent submarine incident in real life, you can imagine how terrifying it would be to be stuck underwater in a plane like this. It’s not even a boat so you can’t trust the plane to hang in there forever. Death by drowning or suffocation are some of the worst ways to go and in that respect I’ll take the quick death in a plane crash into the mountain or something. Still once you’re alive you have to try and make the best of it which is where some of the characters get annoying. They’re still yelling a lot and giving the captain a hard time. I know they’re all stressed but these characters do not do well in emergency situations, that’s for sure.

The Captain is the best character by far because at least he’s doing something about this. He takes risks as needed to get the crew off the boat and does his best to keep everyone calm. I’m not going to say that he’s perfect but I would say he really does everything you can possibly expect him to do and considering that he was knocked out at one point the crew is lucky that he wasn’t too dazed. You definitely feel bad for the one guard who got murdered because the villains ended up hitting him harder than they planned. It definitely goes to show how these hijackers won’t be going for any sympathy points here.

Patroni’s cameo is nice but that’s basically all that it is. The characters ask if he wants to take a more hands on approach to saving everyone but he explains that he can direct better from homebase which makes a lot of sense. Particularly at his age would it really make sense to go out there? Probably not although it still would have been cool to see. The CEO character is nice enough. There’s a lot of family drama going on in his plot but it sort of feels like there’s no point to it because inevitably he will only get to see the family for a minute or two at the very end of the film. So there’s only so much you can do with that.

I’d say where the film shines is that you do get the danger of being in this situation. Everyone knows the fear of the water and when you mix that in with a plane crash then even more so. The film doesn’t overplay its hand with a lot of tragic sob stories or anything like that which I really appreciated. That could have also been annoying but the film doesn’t fall into that. So you’re allowed to see how scary it all is without the film beating you over the head about it. You probably will forget that they’re inside a plane after a while but that’s fine.

The rescue efforts also looked pretty cool. I liked the idea behind it. Of course I would be skeptical in practice but the film depicted the attempt well. It takes itself very seriously so there’s almost no room for humor but the pacing isn’t bad. The movie doesn’t overstay its welcome and so that’s why I would say that this is a good movie. It’s admittedly more of a forgettable movie so you won’t remember it in a year or two. That’s why I won’t say it’s a very good movie or anything but you will be entertained and it doesn’t make any big mistakes so I think it’s fair to put it at this level.

Overall, Airport’77 may be an extremely misleading title for the film since it’s really a submarine film that wants to be an airport movie, but it still works well. The tension is carried across nicely and the effects are solid. The cast is just super forgettable and can’t really hold their own against the casts of the previous two films which isn’t a great look. These guys by and large feel more like horror movie type characters in that almost all of them are really annoying and just exist to set the heroes back as much as possible. Seriously you don’t want any of these guys on your team except for the captain.

Overall 6/10

Noah

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I’m sure that we were all thrilled to see Hollywood finally start to adapt the events of the Bible. It was long overdo. We’ve had many films about the Civil War and other big events and these deserve just as much screentime. On the other hand, many Christians were pretty skeptical since the trailer did look pretty suspect. Unfortunately, they were right to be wary of this film since it’s example of how the theater can try to make the Bible “mainstream” and inaccurate.

As you may have guessed, this is a Very loose adaption of the classic tale. In the Bible, God decides to wipe out most of the human race by having a flood appear on the Earth to wipe everything out. He tells Noah to build an ark. 2 of every animal would go on it along with Noah and his family. The story was not very long in the Bible, but it was a very significant event in history. After all, it was where God said that he would never end the world by flood again. The film takes that plot and adds tons of stuff to it while “fleshing out” the characters to make sure that they are all pretty unlikable.

Now, adapting the Bible is a tricky matter in itself. I’ll definitely admit to that. Some of the events can be pretty brutal and it can be tough to see all of the animals being sacrificed on screen from the old testament. That being said, everything that is contained within the Bible is there for a reason so it must be kept in. It’s tough for me to watch as a big animal lover and the events can be pretty violent. Still, it must never be changed as it can trick new believers and they can miss out. So, I may still have a tough time watching a faithful adaption, but at least I would be watching it as it was meant to be seen. Dragging out the tale of Noah to 2 hours would be tricky for anyone and keeping it completely accurate would be challenging. That being said, the film didn’t need to be over 2 hours and the writers could have consulted with Christian scholars and pastors to get a better consensus of how the film should go. It would be more work, but it would be worth it. It would have also been worth their while to have made the film only run for about an hour or an hour and a half instead of adding tons of plot elements. Where did the film go wrong? Just about everywhere.

We have “The Watchers” who are fallen angels that disobeyed God because they wanted to help the humans while God had already decreed that the descendants of Cain would have to live by the sweat of their brow. God punished them by merging them with the soil of the Earth so that they became rock creatures. Then, the humans betrayed them and destroyed most of The Watchers. The Watchers became angry with humankind and they fled to a rocky area. Well….do you remember any of that from the Bible? I certainly don’t and I read that saga pretty recently. The whole concept of The Watchers is something that I don’t like. Personally, I have always pictured the Angels to be humanoid and made of light. (The Watchers transform back into this form when they die so at least their natural form was more in line with my thoughts) Of course, we won’t really know until we go to Heaven and their forms may not be so easily comprehended. Nontheless, I don’t believe that a human could ever destroy one of them, even if they were cursed to walk the Earth. Ever. That’s simply not possible and a complete insult to them.

It should also be noted that the word God is never used. They just refer to him as “The Creator.” The way that the universe is formed also makes it seem like it was a natural occurrence. God created the light and then everything just formed on its own….yeah right. The film likely didn’t want to offend atheists by mentioning God, but then why are they even making this film? This is supposed to enlighten more people to the word of God and to be a good way for Christians to see the story. If the writers won’t go all the way in making this a true adaption of the story of Noah, then there is no point.

Noah is also a pale shadow of himself. His big moment involves….disobeying God. He believes that God wanted him to murder two babies (You can already see how insane this is right?) so he does everything in his power to destroy them until he is finally next to them. Then he tells God that he will not do it and he leaves. One of the characters tries to tell him that God actually wanted him to spare the babies and he made the right choice, but it was handled poorly. Noah basically ended up choosing his family over God. He definitely misinterpreted God’s message as destroying the babies was not what he was meant to do, but it would have been better if God had told him to stop.

Another thing that I didn’t like was that God never actually spoke to Noah. Noah got brief visions about people drowning and other things, but God never actually talked to him. In the Bible, God told him exactly how to make the Ark, down to the specific size specifications. Again, the general audience may have found that hard to believe, but it’s what happened so that’s what should have happened in the film. We can’t alter the facts just to make things more “believable.” God never explains the visions either and Noah does everything by his own interpretation. In the Bible, everything was made clear to Noah. In the film, they act as if God barely cares about what is transgressing and the angels are the only real proof that he exists. (There are some minor scenes like a flower growing and the flood of course, but not talking at all is not a good move on the film’s part)

Back to Noah himself. He mostly just went around beating everyone up as he got the Ark ready. This just wasn’t the Noah that I was expecting. Self defense is good and all, but having him murder a bunch of people in one of the opening scenes isn’t how his character portrayal should have started. We’re supposed to see that he is a good man in a corrupt world, but we never really see this. He seems to be just another villain as he tries to murder the infants.

You can tell that my experience with the film was pretty negative. It’s just hard not to take a few shots at the film when everything was so wrong. Want to know another big problem with the film? One of the villains actually breaks into the Ark. That definitely did not happen in the Bible and it undermines everything. The whole point was that God protected Noah and his family once they were in the ark. They had nothing to fear because they knew that God would keep them safe. Not in this version and the villain actually murders a few of the animals. There is seriously no justice in this film.

The film has a ton of unnecessary animal violence and it’s very gritty throughout. We see many people dying and injured on the ground as they cannot leave. One of the worst scenes is when Noah walks into the enemy city and witnesses slave auctions and merciless animal violence. Don’t worry, I can possibly top that with another scene. Perhaps it can’t top that last one in terms of terribleness, but it comes close. Noah’s son helps a girl to escape this place and she trips on one of the bear traps. Noah’s son calls for Noah to come and help. So…Noah grabs him and runs away as we see the girl get trampled to death by the incoming mob. Noah regrets nothing since he believes that everyone in the village is evil with no exceptions. No exceptions. After all, he believes that his family are the chosen ones that God has deemed to live so any new life must be destroyed. Hence, why the baby must die.

I could likely go on for a while, but you get the jist of it and this technically isn’t a review. Just know that Noah is a really bad film interpretation of the story and I definitely would not recommend it. God’s Not Dead is a perfect Christian movie to watch that is fictional, but tells a good story. Son of God also came out recently and I can assure you that it is a pretty faithful movie about Jesus. Let’s hope that Exodus will be better as it will be hard to be worse…..but I wouldn’t get my hopes too high. Even if this was just movie that didn’t adapt the Bible, it would have still been a pretty poor one and you can bet that my score for it would have been extremely low. This is a story of brutality and of a man who lived through the great flood, but there is nothing about God’s kindness or anything to really show that he is alive at all. In the end, I’d say that the film….sunk.