Expected more

Am I Missing Something?

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

The use of the SR-71 Blackbird in this film itself is laughable. Any fan worth their salt will call BS on this one. It takes time to plan a mission for that beast, logistics, route planning, refuel points, getting the craft prepped, getting the KC-135Q tankers ready, ensuring the backup craft is also prepped, and the list goes on.. Hollywood got this one wrong where the SR-71 Blackbird is concerned. They chopped the footage and added in an actor in a standard flight suit WRONG. Didn't even bother to edit the footage to remove the original pilots left hand, in the pressure suit, running up the throttles which is bright orange compared to the flat color of the flight suit the pilot was wearing. The original cockpit audio was completely scrubbed, which would have fit the movie much better than the junk chatter the tossed in there. Since when does the SR-71 carry passengers?? They would have us believe that they are going to carry two people in the central bay of it, it doesn't have one. That area is a fuel cell, not to mention it's not pressurized and subject to all manner of stresses. Supposedly this was to be flown to catch up with and dock to a commercial passenger aircraft to transfer people, seriously? Utterly laughable.. It was so bad I turned it off.They used the majority of footage from the following video. https://youtu.be/hZIGKwhQ8dwIf the link does not work, search YouTube for Blackbird101, and locate his video SR-71 Blackbird Launch. This contains all the scenes from the movie in full along with the original cockpit audio.The engine ignition sequence, hangar rollout and marshaling, taxi to runway, takeoff and climb to altitude. Whoever made this needs to learn how to research something before making it public.

Everything about this movie - from the plot, to the script, to the casting - is simply disastrous. The writers and technical specialists should have done their homework - something the obviously did not do. And just a note to casting directors - filling your cast with pretty women and good-looking men does not necessarily make a good film. It just means you are down-right lazy. As for the so-called "acting" ... wow. Bad. Just ... bad. One exception - and quite honestly, the biggest surprise was Casper Van Dien; not usually a heavyweight when it comes to acting-chops, he's actually pretty good in this sorry excuse for a movie.

I was actually hoping the plane would go down, just to end the dreadful mess. Every conceivable cliché ever used in an air disaster film was present in this one. I kept watching simply in anticipation of the next over acted scene, thinking at some point it would have to show a sign of something loosely plausible. The hole just kept getting deeper, right up to the end. Were all flight safety rules set aside by the FAA for this particular flight? I'm not an air safety expert, but shouldn't there be at least a co-pilot at the controls at all times. I gave it a two because even if for all the wrong reasons I did purpose to sit through it. It could have almost been a comedy. I often flashed back to one of the AIRPLANE movies of the seventies expecting a laugh. Watch it for it's goofiness. That's the only entertaining thing about it.

Oh Lord! Another dreadful, cliché ridden, air disaster film. I laughed all the way through.It made Airplane look like a Shakespearean production. Even if you never worked in the airline industry (as I did) you could not help but notice the many glaring inaccuracies. At least I got to see it for free on HBO. I wouldn't have been laughing so much if I had paid to see it in a cinema. I often wonder if actors really know what their signing up for when they agree to do films like this, or are they just desperate for the money! You also have to wonder who the technical adviser was for this disaster of a disaster film... Oh hang on, maybe it was meant to be a comedy??!!