Redundant and unnecessary.

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Another Seventies Disaster, a Disaster Movie that Viewers Today Love to Poke Fun and some even call these Things Camp Classics. But in 1972 it was a Stinker and no Amount of Glossing Over its Inanities could make it anything more than a Boring Bunch of Passengers on board a Commercial Flight with a Former Military Pilot hoping to keep Control of "His" Airplane from a Nutjob Determined to Fill Two Hours of Screen Time with Clichéd Scene Chewing among the Clichéd People that Populate these Things.Bland, Hardly Exciting Waste of Time Watching Blurry Flashbacks that Attempt to Add Weight to the Proceedings and come off as nothing more than Sopa Opera Filler. There isn't an Interesting Character Aboard of the 100 Souls and the Tension is too Choreographed and Badly Edited to Amount to Much. This is Anything but Sure Handed Filmmaking. What's with all the Zooms to the Lipstick Counter, wouldn't One be Enough. The Movie has got no Heart and no Intrigue and Yes, it may be Laughable but at the Expense of Your Wasted Time and Trying to get Any Fun from this is Futile. It is just Plain Bad from the Awkward Beginning to the Overly Staged Ending.

As others have said, some interesting scenes indicative of the times: pilots and passengers smoking mid-flight, pregnant woman orders a bloody Mary, crazy hi-jacker is able to board with a machine gun and a satchel full of live grenades. Plus he has a flashing light on his carry-on bag which he later pretends contains a bomb that he can control with a remote control device. Hmm... nobody at check-in asked him about the flashing light on his hand luggage?! LOL The weakest part of this movie was how they used dreams and weakly designed flashback sequences to provide "depth" (such as it is) about some of the key characters. But we really didn't gain anything from finding out that Heston had an illicit affair with Mimieux. (Given the opportunity, who wouldn't? She's gorgeous.) The hi-jacker was Section 8 case from the Army who decides to hi-jack this plane to Moscow but his flashbacks explain almost nothing: somehow he's disgruntled that he didn't get his due from the U.S. military and he anticipates being able to get recognition from the Soviets by hi-jacking a U.S. passenger jet which happens to be carrying a U.S. senator whose on some mission that's never explained. Would the Soviets give a damn? Evidently not since they gun him down after the jet lands in Moscow. But he doesn't help his case deplaning with his machine gun and a vest full of grenades.This may sound like I didn't like the movie but that's wrong. Heston did a decent job, Mimieux is nice eye-candy and Claude Akins was his usual self as the only guy capable of talking Heston down through the ice storm into Anchorage. I had to laugh at the earlier review who stated that the reviewer has had more difficult bowel movements than Mariette Hartley's emergency delivery on the plane! Why the hijacker would keep a woman in labor on his plane when he could have gotten rid of her in Anchorage is never explained---other than that he's a Section 8 case and not making much sense in most respects.Worth seeing for sure---once!

A decent if not spectacular entry into the Seventies disaster films is Skyjacked often confused with another airplane disaster film that starred Charlton Heston, Airport 75. This one is better than that thing from the Airport series.Susan Dey playing one of the passengers finds a note written in one of the airplane bathrooms demanding that the plane be taken to Anchorage Alaska for refueling for a trip to the then Soviet Union. The pilot is Charlton Heston the crew is co-pilot Mike Henry, navigator Ken Swofford and various stewardesses headed by Yvette Mimieux. The note says the writer has a bomb as well to enforce his demands.There's not much suspense here in that from the beginning you know it is James Brolin, the soldier so eager to get on board. What you don't know is that he's being discharged for being deranged, but we learn that just a tad too late before Brolin reveals himself and takes the plane and its passengers hostage.The best thing about Skyjacked is the duel of minds and wits between Heston and Brolin. In fact Brolin is a truly frightening individual whose instability makes him hard to control and his combat skills and weaponry make him deadly.Speaking of the weaponry, note that Brolin takes it on board the plane as a carry on in his duffel bag. Thanks to 9/11 we've certainly beefed up security so that at least that could never happen now in that way.Skyjacked is not the best of the Seventies disaster films, but it holds up reasonably well for today's audience.

I just revisited this after not seeing it since I was 12 in a theater. I must say, this movie holds up quite well. Yes, it is dated in places, but a 40-year old film naturally will be. Good suspense, a little soap opera fluff here and there, but never gets in the way of the story. Much more serious in overall tone than "Airport" from just a couple years earlier. Brolin is excellent as the crazed ex-soldier, and Heston is very good, in probably one of his last good roles. I would recommend this for both disaster-movie buffs, and aviation buffs, as it delivers for both. Also, gotta love Partridge Susan Dey in probably her first motion picture after her TV success.