Flight of the Phoenix (2004)

Flight of the Phoenix is a useful enough and enjoyable enough update of the original Robert Aldrich film starring James Stewart. The term "update" is more appropriate than "remake," as the setting has shifted from the Sahara to the Gobi; the producers must have recognized that American crash victims attacked by lawless Arab nomads (terror cells?) might be a tad more politically sensitive in 2004 than it was in 1965. Whether any kind of lawless nomads are a necessary part of the story is another matter, since the stakes needn't be raised any further than the characters facing mutiny and starvation, amid violent sandstorms that can rip flesh. Still, director John Moore follows the original structure pretty closely, and the screenwriting team (which features Edward Burns) gives the dialogue good punch. It's also a visually ambitious film -- not only on the obvious level of the gripping crash sequence, but in its visual representation of hypothetical scenarios from the dialogue, which makes it a little reminiscent of Three Kings. In one such instance, a character rattles off the hopeless succession of hazards that would await anyone who tried navigating to safety, a hundred miles distant, with nary a landmark to keep one oriented. Dennis Quaid is suitably macho and Giovanni Ribisi sufficiently eccentric as the central characters grappling for command. The addition of a woman/love interest (Miranda Otto), a departure from the original, works well enough, but the script never questions that the stranded crew would be anything other than complete gentlemen toward her. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide