About Plane

Post 1314:

The way we evaluate stories changes over time. It doesn’t have to be conscious. It can depend on the season of your life. If times are good, you may look with a less critical eye. You may have a taste for the lighthearted, depending on life circumstances. Escapism one month, realism the next. Who knows.

What we carry into a show, film or book is theoretically infinite. This is assuming you are the collection of everything that’s ever happened to you, everything that hasn’t happened to you, and everything else. So, maybe not infinite. But a crapload. Not to mention your inherent tastes.

I only wrote that little preamble to help you understand why I like so many different things. I’ve written about classics, high brow, low brow, simple, complex, and everything in between.

For some kinetic, direct fun, I recently watched Plane. I’d recommend it. No, I was not wowed by the sophistication of the plot. The characters were what they needed to be. It took itself serious. It didn’t undermine the hero. It was tense. There were bad guys. Innocents. Guns. A plot that came across as plausible enough.

Spoilers. So, a plane miraculously lands on a small island that’s run by no real government besides mean guys with guns. They can’t communicate with the outside world, but they need to. They can’t fight the bad guys, but they need to.

And that’s what they do. It’s a couple of guys doing what they have to do. I liked the simplicity. Fear and stupidity are punished. Bravery and intelligence are rewarded. There are a few conveniences. But it’s an action movie. Also, I liked how the corporate guy for the airline is smart. I sort of expect the businessmen to be portrayed as incompetent hacks that only care about money and covering their asses. Here, they actually help to solve the problem. It’s a nice change.

When it’s over, you let out a breath. Wow. That was close. The hero has earned a beer and a kiss from a pretty girl. He doesn’t get those things. So they missed out on that.

The emergency landing and takeoff sequences are hard to swallow. Let’s call them extremely unlikely. But I’ve been flying since I was kid, and it didn’t take me out of the story. Check it out. And add it to the list of one-word aviation titles. Airplane, Flight… now we got Plane. Talk about three different movies. But let’s go ahead and recommend them all. Airplane to laugh. Flight to be depressed. Plane to have some fun.

Onwards and upwards. Cheers and see you after.