Mayday

This movie does not do justice to the original book from which it was taken. About 30 years ago Tom Block's name was on the cover, and he was credited with this original book. Recently his friend and fellow writer Nelson DeMille put his name on it. The movie barely mentions Tom Block. Tom is a retired airline pilot who knows his stuff. Read the book to see that. We can guess why this was done. Some asked about afterburners and rapid or explosive decompression. Read the book, but there was a lot of funny things going on in the film with all this. Funny and dumb to a pilot. Even with so many changes it was a half way interesting film. Too bad it might take readers away from the re-released book when it ought to help to make a lot more. Film viewers will be more than pleasantly surprised if they do read Tom Block's book (well, I guess Nelson DeMille did have a good part in the writing, after all he got his name on it finally). See the film, but definitely read the book.

I saw it, and I thought it was a very decent movie. It is certainly not a waste of time, and it was like a breath of fresh air compared to all the other crap showing on local broadcast TV. The plot was not original, but I like how they presented it. And I also thought the jet was cool. The acting was 'OK'. I have certainly seen worse in the movie theater, but it could have been better. The music score fit the movie well and the actors were OK. The plane was cool to look at. The plot, although not original, was interesting. It also has a good cliff hanger to it, and at one point in the movie I was afraid of the dreaded "To be Continued" (this was before I knew I was watching a movie). The over all feel to it was like a really good episode of "24".

Bottom Line: Not a waste of time, but not exactly super-fantastic either.

If I hadn't read the book, I would have liked the movie better. The movie deleted much of the "controversal" stuff from the book and it muddied what happened to the passengers. There were technical errors about flying that were sloppy: why have the controller give a take off clearance twice when one should have been a taxi clearance. And what was with the group in the conference room on the plane? Totally unnecessary, wasn't in the book, added nothing to the movie. Aidan Quinn and Kelly Hu were good, not to sappy. Quinn was pretty faithful to the written character of the "weekend" pilot. Dean Cain was miss-cast. I don't see him as amoral as his character was supposed to be.

So let's see: The American Navy is testing a new missile, somehow manages to miss the fact that a passenger airliner is in the test airspace, missile hits plane. Explosive decompression somehow lasts TWO FREAKING MINUTES, and sucks many people out of the plane. It's powerful enough to rip a set of bolted chairs out of the floor and out of the plane .(It's about 15 minutes into the movie, and already you can tell the people making this movie have no clue about airplanes... or basic physics for that matter.) Captain dies from lack of oxygen and the co-pilot is in a coma for the same reason. (What?!) A "weekend pilot" takes over the controls and has to land the plane. Meanwhile, both the Navy and the airline's insurance company are independently scheming to secretly destroy the crippled plane, so they can hide their idiocy and save money, respectively.

Thanks to a "sympathetic" admiral, who for much of the movie stood by while orders to destroy the plane were given and almost followed, but then declared self-righteously that his report to the Pentagon would tell it "like it happened", we can assume that justice will be done.

Of course the heroic pilot manages to bring the plane in for a dramatic landing, everyone is happy, and thanks to evidence he gathered, the insurance guys will get their just deserts as well.

The plot is unbelievable to say the least. The actors are variously over-acting, under-acting, or acting dead. (The last group did the best job, I think.) The music screams: THIS IS THE EXCITING PART! THIS IS THE SAD PART! BE ANGRY! CRY! ON THE EDGE OF YOU SEAT, NOW! After a while you tune it out. The whole movie, I mean.

Save yourself two hours, and don't watch this piece of crap.

The only reason this is getting 2 out of 10 and not 1 is because I have seen a few movies that were worse... but very few.

I taped this movie so I could watch it after I read the book.The book was far better.In the book,the passengers who survived turned into zombies though oxygen deprivation and their actions threatened the survivors.One flight attendant was killed by them.There was a scene in the book where Kelly's character took off her pantyhose to close the cockpit door so the passengers wouldn't get in.Sadly that wasn't in the movie either.Also,I know that this was a TV movie,and that the acting wasn't going to be the greatest,but at least hire actors who can act well enough to get you caught up in the story,I'm specifically referring to Aidan and Kelly,somebody else said they acted like they were on a Disney World ride,and I agree.I kept looking at the tape timer to see how long it would be until it was over.If it comes on again,just tape it and watch something else.