Turbulence 2: Fear of Flying

This is a fairly awful film, a purported "sequel" (in name only, methinks) to the Ray Liotta film "Turbulence"m made in 1997.

Well, its three years later, and Liotta is nowhere in sight, but this goofy film, about a group of "fear of flying" types who are beset on their voyage by hijackers, bad weather, and pretty much anything else that can go wrong on a flight, also goes by the name "Turbulence II", probably for video purposes.

Alas, this "Fear of Flying" ain't a film version of Erica Jong's novel, just a very silly film that uses about a half dozen sets, some really comical performances, and some not-too-great visual effects that would make Ed Wood envious.

Its really odd seeing good actors like Craig Sheffer, Jennifer Beals and Tom Berenger trying to work with this bad script.

Even more bizarre (for me, anyways) was the sight of Jeffrey Nordling, of the ABC dramedy "Once and Again", sporting an inept European accent, attempting to bonk Beals in the lavatory of the plane, which, in my experience, are hardly big enough for one, let alone two people coupling !

Oh well, what else can I say ?

The portentous music, horrible acting,bad plotting,and terrible effects make "Turbulence II:Fear of Flying" a film experience that will cause all Ed Wood fans to rejoice - He lives !

The plot of this film is just so preposterous it makes "Airplane!" look like a slice of gritty realism. Nervous flyers on a plane in a terrible storm with evil European terrorists (no clue as to what their cause was, other than "being evil"), deadly nerve gases, dead cabin crew, drugged ice cubes, gun fights, a missile attack, and an ordinary Joe who has to land the plane (he has a dead wife, and an impossibly cute little son, of course).

As the action lurched from this implausible random plot twist to that piece of clunky, cliche-ridden dialogue, I found myself being charmed by the sheer awfulness of it all.

My favourite part is when a terrorist starts babbling in Czech, and Jennifer Beals offers to try and interpret since she learned a few words of Polish from her Grandmother as a child. Seconds later she is in full swing: "He says that there is a deadly nerve gas in the hold, and he will press the detonator killing everyone within a 5 mile radius"....Whatever did her grandmother talk about all the time that she picked up that vocabulary?

The first Turbulence movie really reeked (ie. it stunk out the whole cabin), mostly because there were large portions of the movie where nothing much exciting happened. They fixed this problem for Turbulence 2 with wall-to-wall non-stop heart-pounding action. OK, the action isn't heart-pounding but it's certainly wall-to-wall. There's always somebody fighting, running away, chasing, blowing something up, shooting, dying, trying to escape or, of course, flying the plane in turbulent conditions. Oh yeah, and falling...

The wall-to-wall action is flanked closely on both sides with wall-to-wall stupidity, but to its credit the movie does not take itself too seriously. How could it? A fear of flying group takes a ride in a plane with a bunch of terrorists with a bomb on board which then heads towards a storm. Ha ha, yeah right. Now, it's up to the fear of flying passengers & crew to save the day which they do with varying degrees of success. When ANOTHER crew member gets shot attempting to overthrow the bad guy the bad guy says something along the lines of "Aargh! what's wrong with you people?". It's delivered beautifully.

Actually, the acting in general is really very, err, well capable. I was going to say good, but in the context of this movie it wouldn't quite fit. I'm only giving this movie 4/10, but it's a fun 4/10. Chill that beer, microwave that popcorn, hand over your $2 to the video shop, switch off brain, press play, enjoy.

Now and then one of those wonderful films comes along that is so terrible it's good. It's no small feat to maintain such disregard for reality, such outrageous inconsistencies, so many factual clangers and to tell the story with so many awful lines. I especially enjoyed "We're all gonna die." Not to mention the bonking in the lavatory. Hell I find it hard to brush my teeth in one of those things let alone commit adultery.It would be easier in a Volkswagen. This film is so unrelently ghastly that I enjoyed it immensely. Not just bad. Ghastly! It's not a likely candidate for an in flight movie but it should be. Nobody on board any aircraft anywhere would ever believe anything in it.

Actually this movie is a bit better than the ridiculous first part, which was nothing less than shameful. But when I saw this I actually had a good time. Now I thinking seriously about renting part 3, but who knows...