Y a-t-il un pilote dans l'avion?

Still one of funniest spoof movies ever made, Airplane is one of the first and one of the best around.

Hot Shots, Loaded Weapon even Naked Gun have tried to follow in its footsteps, but they have failed to hit the mark. That's not to say that they are bad movies, just that its difficult to follow a movie of this calibre.

Spoof movies definitely have there place in everyone's collection, but this is probably the best you'll ever see in the genre, if you have never seen it and you fancy a laugh, I can't recommend a better film, even though it has dated; it's still hilarious 9/10

Disaster films were the rage in the 1970s. As the decade wore on the films got even more star studded and the stakes get higher. The scripts flabbier and our square jawed heroes getting even more po faced with each impending disaster.

Surely this could not continue and after Airplane it did not. It burst the disaster film bubble and stop calling me Shirley!

Airplane with its deadpan humour, jokes with double meanings and risqué gags. Both visual and spoken broke the mould when it came to comedy pastiche movies.

Even more than 30 years later it entices a new generation even though some of the topical references (Gerald Ford, Ethel Merman) might be meaningless to many new viewers.

The real beauty of Airplane was getting solid actors to play their part straight. Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack and Leslie Nielsen shine in their roles, totally ignoring the mayhem around them.

For Neilsen a man known for playing solid drama roles, it gave him a lucrative extension in his career as a slapstick comedy actor.

Airplane is just plane crazy.

Parodies or Spoofs are one particular segment that I have rarely got the opportunity to venture into. Partly due to the comparative absence of such features in the current scenario where black comedies are the talk of the town.

Nevertheless, I have made my decision to explore this relatively uncharted territory after watching some hilarious clips that I found on Reddit last week and I'm glad I listened to my conscience.

It is extremely slapsticky but at the same time, the writing oozes brilliance. It's witty, it's clever and it knows how and when to deliver the lines. Now, for some of you the performances may come across as hammy, a bit over-the-top, but as this was all intentional, it all come to be just fine. Not all jokes land but the ones that did lay the foundation for some comedic golds.

Rumack: Captain, how soon can you land?

Captain Oveur: I can't tell.

Rumack: You can tell me. I'm a doctor.

Captain Oveur: No. I mean I'm just not sure.

Rumack: Well, can't you take a guess?

Captain Oveur: Well, not for another two hours.

Rumack: You can't take a guess for another two hours?

It is my understanding that there are still a few people in the world that haven't seen "Airplane!" yet.

Those people probably are still waiting for electricity, indoor plumbing and all the other great advances in humanity, too.

To see "Airplane!" is to take part in the great move to subvert all self-importance in movies, which this film does with great relish (and plenty of corn).

You get a chance to see such "serious" actors as Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack and Leslie Nielsen subvert themselves and their own personnae into near oblivion thanks to the writing/directing team of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker. Not to mention visual and verbal send-ups of darn near every movie that ever took place in the air, and a few that didn't, but should have.

Kudos to Leslie Nielsen, who with this movie gave himself the greatest reinvention of any actor this century. At one time, he was the very model of stoic sensibility.

I swear. Seriously.

A looooong time ago.

Ten stars. A laugh riot.

And I STILL think this would make a great in-flight movie.

Quite simply one of the best laugh-out-loud movies ever made. The unapologetic Dad jokes and dry satire are eternally enjoyable and the movie has not lost any of it's bite over the years. Eminently quotable and amongst the best in its class.