Who payed the critics

Lack of good storyline.

Better Late Then Never

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Another one of those baddies captures a plane (or ship or train or building) and only one lone and loose hero is present to take out the villains kind of movie. Captain Christopher Winfield after a bad incident with an experimental F-117 in Turkey is ordered back to the U.S.A. It just happens that the plane he goes back in is a massive C-5 Galaxy that just happens to have two experimental F-117s on board and a small crew including obvious love interest Major Janet Morgan who captains the plane. The well armed bad guys absurdly board the C-5 down an aerial refueling boom (!) with the intention of stealing the F-117s and selling them for zillions of dollars. Then the action is let loose.It's not bad, it's not great. Andrew Divoff as Captain Winfield is adequate. Better are Elizabeth Morehead as gritty Major Morgan and stealing all his scenes there is Jürgen Prochnow as the main culprit Phillips. The rest of the indistinguishable cast, plane crew and terrorists, are mainly there to off each other. There is some plot device about flying a real plane using virtual reality headsets but it could have been dropped without affecting the film.Worth seeing mainly for Jürgen Prochnow curling his lip villainously.

This flick gets two dubious "awards" from me: 1) Most Loopholes of Any Movie Award, and 2) Most Predictable, Dumbest "Plot" Award.I can't count the number of loopholes. I won't waste my time (or yours) by trying to list even a small part. They ruined what should otherwise have been a "just-drop-thinking-entirely-and-enjoy-an-action-flick" experience. The loopholes were just too intrusive for anyone, even one with only a few active braincells like me.Here's the plot. SPOILERS. MANY SPOILERS. Experimental fighter plane pilot appears to screw up, although he claims it was an equipment failure. He heads home for an inquiry, just happening, by strange chance, to be riding in a transport plane which can, miraculously, hold two flight-ready experimental fighters within it. And it does, indeed (or within Hollywood "reality") hold both of them.Terrorist band ruthlessly kills many, many U.S. Air Force folks on the way to boarding transport in mid-air, to capture said experimental fighters. Head terrorist, the chief murderer, is, inexplicably, fully capable of flying these experimental fighters, and using the virtual-reality helmet, which just happens to be the equipment which doesn't work too well. Head terrorist has an assistant, call him Vice-Head Terrorist, who is equally qualified.Extremely attractive female transport pilot, a Major, becomes allied, of course, with the fighter jock. They manage to, miraculously, kill every terrorist, trashing one transport and one experimental fighter in the process. Two Air Force pilots, one female, the other male, limp off romantically into the Australian sunset.Other user reviewers said things like, "Surpisingly Good," "My Favorite Movie," etc.Are You Kidding Me? Give Me A Break!

This is a sufficiently entertaining ride. Oh, it's not a masterpiece, and it does little to challenge genre conventions. And I think it can be fairly widely agreed that the visor looks downright goofy(maybe they didn't think so at the time), and it should definitely be pointed out that this is really *not* a sci-fi flick, and the only element of such that there is in this is the high-tech jet(and they don't exactly spend the whole movie in it). With that said, some of this is pretty damn cool. The Virtual Reality isn't groundbreaking(anymore), but at least they didn't base the whole thing around it *cough* Lawnmower Man *cough*. And many of the FX are quite convincing. The numerous strong moments in the editing and cinematography deserve mention, as well. This is directed by the man who went on to do Snow White: A Tale of Terror, one of the too few adaptations of fairy tales that actually capture the grim nature of rather a lot of them(seriously, go read the originals, then, if you can stand it, watch some Disney to compare), and while he's doesn't do fantastic on either, he makes them work and even stand out from the bunch, marginally. He takes what could be instantly forgettable and makes it have a smidgen of an impression. There is great tension and suspense in this, and it genuinely gets the job done, engaging and exciting us for the nicely paced, doesn't-overstay-its-welcome 90 minutes. The action isn't bad. There is a decent sense of humor here and there in this. The writing is good at times. I personally love Divoff and Prochnow(who *revels* in his role as the villain), albeit for entirely different reasons. They both deliver solid performances. The rest of the acting varies. Andrew portrays a pilot who abandons a plane being tested, and then flies with a massive transport, carrying the two experimental stealth fighters. Terrorists attack, intending to steal them. Fun, and never claims to be anything other than what it is. There is a bit of disturbing content and brutal, if not terribly bloody or gory, violence, in this. I recommend it to anyone looking for a simple picture that just needs to deliver the goods. 6/10

That's about it.Okay, okay. The plot, such as it is, goes like this: Our hero is a USAF pilot testing a "Virtual Reality" helmet in an F-117 over Turkey. It fails, and he barely has time to bail out before his plane crashes. Disgraced, he's sent home packing, along with the two remaining VR F-117 prototypes.Why are they testing it over Turkey? Why not Area 51? Why not *anywhere* in the United States? Because the long flight home means that the terrorists, led by "Das Boot" kapitan Jurgen Prochnow, can board through an air-to-air refueling line (!) and make a grab for the remaining two planes.You can figure out the rest. Our hero must sneak around the conveniently large ductwork of the C-5 transport, offing terrorists one by one, while the love interest ('scuse me, the C-5's pilot) keeps trying to kick bad guys out of her cockpit and call on the radio for help.There's absolutely nothing innovative about this movie in the slightest. The action is mundane, the characters are cardboard, and the technical goofs are legion. Watch it only if you feel like having an "MST3K" party at your house.Or rent "Air Force One" and have a double-feature.