Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Made-for-TV hokum, in the tradition of the fun Airport films, with an "all-star" cast playing the usual group of strangers with soap opera issues who board a fancy new rocket-powered hypersonic plane on its maiden flight. All hell breaks loose and the plane is knocked into space! NASA comes to the rescue. Really dumb and never as much fun as you would hope. It's actually pretty dull, which is unforgivable given the absurd premise that begs to be mocked. Cast includes Lee Majors, Lauren Hutton, Ray Milland, Hal Linden, Tess Harper, Heather McAdam, Terry Kiser, and Phil from Murphy Brown. Robert Englund has a bit part. John Dykstra's special effects are good, particularly by TV standards. That's about the best thing I can say about this. I wish it was more fun.

This movie has a few exciting moments, but for the most part, it's just another Airport redux. For me, it was hard to get past its unfaithfulness to science, to reality, and in the case of the characters, each other. Every time they re-launched the space shuttle to go and rescue the stranded passengers, I just rolled my eyes and how implausible that whole thing was...especially when they launched it the third time, just two hours after the second mission had landed. The happily-ever-after scene at the end is of the pilot joyously embracing his stewardess mistress, while his wife drives away alone. That's supposed to make us feel all warm and fuzzy?

You will find parts of this movie, little segments of it, embarrassingly funny. When I first saw it in 84, it was engrossing. When watching it back I 2003, I just found it pretty pathetic, and felt a schmuck for watching back in the eighties. But they were very cheesy and dark times. The same goes for those Airport films, me and Dad ribtickling ourselves over them. What we've got here is a fictional, what if scenario, about a hyposonic airplane, a Concorde shuttle that can make the distance from Los Angeles to Sydney in two hours. In no way is a two second exterior shot of Sydney airport, Sydney airport. What cheek. We have a good cast here too, notably Linden and Majors, one of many few films he did. While in the air, a rocket has exploded sending hulks of a metal careering towards the super cool airplane. Forced to rear up, drastically, they caught in orbit, for which there is no way to return. I remember in olden days, this got incredibly tense. And when the plane set down again, a relief came over me, although a score of passengers got lost in one of those shutes that blew up. But you just take Starflight One for what is it, a guilty cheesy, eighties pleasure, for the whole family, with unintentional laughs here and there.

I know, 9 seems very high in light of the fact that this is a low budget catastrophe movie from the 80s, but i had so much fun watching it(multiple times), so it's am earned number.As you know, the movie is about a new commercial plane with a rocket engine as secondary propulsion system. There is an accident with a carrier rocket in Australia, and the plane ends up in orbit around earth, which it isn't build for.Let me just point out the things i like about the movie. Hal Linden as Josh is great. He is a very believable character. Pat Corley, as Joe, the journalists technician is also a good casting member. The rest is meh at best.The point is, that this movies has very good music, a lot of scenes with real suspense and in addition the rescue attempts, while not 100% realistic, are innovative, and fun to watch. Also there are a lot of good jokes in this movie. Josh is great, Joe too, and Joshs wife is also a strong character.The thing that a lot of reviewers seemingly miss, are the messages in this movie. There is greed, witch leads to this catastrophe in the first place, cold number-crunching on one side, and the value of human live on the other. Also the notion never to give up is a big part of this movie. One thing, that can't be overstated is, that these people keep their calms. They don't scream all the time, they don't behave like children, and they don't behave like animals in fear. While this may not be realistic, it is nerve soothing to say the least. Most catastrophe movies are full with it, making them hard to watch, screeching on my nerves like fingernails on a blackboard. This is not the case here. The passengers don't sabotage their own rescue by behaving stupid. At least most of the time.Lets just say the movie never gets boring, and if you can overlook the wooden performances of Lee Majors and Sandra Hutton, than you can expect a fun movie with lots of suspensionI urge you to find this movie, and have a great time watching it.