Flight World War II Review by Bobby LePire. Edited by Courtney McAllister.

 

Lest one forget, The Asylum don’t just create mockbusters. Their output of original films is quite prolific, and covers a wide range of genres- sci fi, fantasy, drama, kids, family. Surprisingly though, the studio has only made one actual war movie, “Ardennes Fury” (which is a tie-in to “Fury”). And now, they just released a WWII original which can actually boast being fairly original. Does that originality translate into a good movie and fun time?

The plot is most interesting-

Modern International Flight 42 seems to be right on course, when all of a sudden a huge, odd looking storm falls upon them. Surviving that, pilots Will Strong (Faran Tahir) and Daniel Prentice (Matias Ponce) notice all of their instruments, save for the radar, no longer work. They are unable to reach anyone on the radio. Descending to a lower altitude, they find themselves in the midst of a massive German bombing along the French coast, in 1940! Can the pilots and passengers survive World War II dogfights and find a way back to their own time?

Right off the bat, the element that struck me the most, and definitely helped make this so watchable, was the tone. Director Emile Edwin Smith (of the awesome “Mega Shark Vs. Mecha Shark”) finds a nice balance between the mysterious happenings, drama with the passengers, and the dogfight action. The whole movie walks a fine balance of genres, and Smith ably navigates through them while maintaining the tone. There are big budget movies that fail at this sort of thing miserably, and thus make for a frustrating watch (looking at you, “Source Code”), so massive kudos to the director there. He also keeps everything moving at a brisk pace, even if there are one too many shots of passengers shaking in their seats due to turbulence, being shot at, falling, etc. I get that there are only so many ways one can convey action movements while trapped in a 250 foot long flying steel tube, but I did get a little sick of seeing it. Maybe if the camera were still during those moments, I’d be more inclined to forgive t.

 

Smith was also the special effects supervisor on this production. His work on that front, along with visual effects artist John Karner, is a bit of a mixed bag. There are times where the CGI plane looks pretty good, and in one standout sequence- in order to get away from some fighter planes, the pilots turn the engine off and let the plane freefall for a few thousand feet, until turning everything back on and pulling up as fast as possible; causing a few of their tails to crash into the ground- have some incredible weight behind it. Look, I know jack and shit about aerodynamics, and have no clue if that type of maneuver is even possible, but I bought into it while watching the film, which I credit to the special effects. Unfortunately, a few shots of the plane look weirdly rubbery, especially when it gets sucked through the cloud anomaly/ time vortex thing. Also, some of the greenscreen work for the German fighter pilots is quite obvious.

 

Rob Pallatina’s editing is good, especially when British troops on the ground get involved. There’s a shootout to get some dropped goods that is very well edited and exciting. However, there are moments where we cut to something that’s on screen for maybe two seconds, and then to something else. This is usually during the dogfights, and I am not always certain what I was suppose to be noticing in those quick cuts. As he proved with “Hansel Vs. Gretel”, Ben Demaree, the cinematographer on the best looking Asylum flicks, really knows how to get the most out of nighttime settings. Some 98% of the movie is set at night; there is never a sequence that is too dark to see, or looks conspicuously staged. Most of the movie is set on a plane, so there is only so much one can do here, but the set never gets boring, so kudos to the production and art teams, and to Demaree for never letting it look flat.

 

Isaac Sprintis’ score is the best Asylum score of the year, to date. It’s pulse pounding, fist thumping, exciting awesomeness that turns even something as simple as two history professors explaining their theory to the captain into something rousing. It is a wonderful surprise, and even if the rest of the movie was a letdown (which it most certainly isn’t), it’d still be worth watching just to hear this score.

 

Jacob Cooney and Bill Hanstock’s script is quite good. While there have been some time travel movies with a similar angle, this manages to avoid a lot of cliches. Only one passenger freaks out, but even then, he is just demanding real answers. The young radio operator the pilots are able to eventually make contact with does one fact checking thing, and then believes their story. This is refreshing, as the situation is dramatic enough, no need to force frivolous plot points or bog things down with unnecessary, overly convoluted plots. Their dialogue is a tad less good than their storytelling abilities. So much of it is exposition- explaining to Nigel (Robbie Kay), the young radio operator, explaining to the passengers, the history professors (Radmar Agana Jao as Bennett and David Campfield as Nathan) explaining stuff to the pilots, there is just so much explaining. All the explaining! The movie has no subplots to speak of, so all this exposition tells the audience things it already knows. Happily, the dialogue itself sounds natural, with a real life conversational rhythm being found early on.

 

Faran Tahir, who I imagine most will recognize from “Iron Man”, makes for a very engaging and easy to root for lead. He’s quite grounded, even with all the craziness surrounding him, so he keeps a level head at all times. That is, in part due to a solid script, but Tahir makes it believable. He doesn’t tell the passengers the whole truth until about halfway through, but his impassioned speech does seem like it was only for their safety. Ponce as the co-pilot has a solid rapport with Tahir, and they sound believable as longtime colleagues. Aqueela Zoll as head stewardess Cameron is excellent. I loved how she perkily threatens one passenger who keeps aggressively grabbing her arm and demanding updates about the situation. The venom behind her words, while still courteous and professional, is quite entertaining.

 

Robbie Kay is quite enjoyable as the young soldier helping the plane on the ground. His earnestness is put to good use, and it’s easy to understand why he’d be susceptible to believing the crazy story more than his captain. As the professors Campfield and Jao state the dates and such with real passion and conviction, so they seem like real history professors. As the freaking out passenger, Blaine Grey gives the worst performance. He never ratchets the crazy up all that much, so when he loses it and (more or less) attempts to instigate a riot, he still sounds calm and collected. This does a disservice to that part of the plot, making things slow down just a bit.

 

****Major Spoilers*****

This paragraph shall discuss one of my favorite turns in the plot, but it is a big spoiler about the end, so skip it if you haven’t seen the movie yet.

 

All throughout, there is one elderly passenger who always seems to know right when to help out or have the right thing at the right time. Well, in an awesome reveal, it is shown that he is a now much, much older Nigel- the same Nigel that helped them on the ground all those years ago. This adds a wonderful sense of closure to Nigel’s story, and gives us the whole story of his life in just a few brief shots and lines of dialogue. I honestly didn’t see it coming, and it is a pretty cool and logical twist.

***End Spoilers*****

 

“Flight World War II” is an interesting idea, delivered with a great sense of fun. Not everything about it works, but overall, there are too many neat moments, impressive technical skills, and solid acting chops on display to not enjoy. Definitely worth checking out, especially if you like WWII movies with a dash of science fiction.