Flight of the Phoenix

Naturally, there are bound to be very few surprises in a movie that reveals its ending in the title, but this remake of the 1965 Jimmy Stewart adventure--in which the survivors of a desert plane crash build a new makeshift aircraft from the wreckage of the old one--unfortunately boasts no surprises at all. From a guy showing others pictures of his wife and kid (uh oh) before the doomed cargo plane even takes off, to the personality clashes as social order disintegrates among the gritty cultural cross-section of passengers, to the inspirational speech by Capt. Dennis Quaid that brings them all back together, everything in the story turns up pretty much on cue. Even the band of desert marauders, who appear to threaten the group, arrive just in time to kick off the third act, but there's never any real sense of peril because the entire film feels prefabricated. In fact, only Giovanni Ribisi is unpredictable as a coldly practical aviation nerd who becomes egomaniacal once he realizes that "everyone here is dispensable except me" (his performance is somewhat affected, but it's a welcome respite from the overriding inevitability). Not a necessary purchase. [Note: Available in either a widescreen or full screen version, DVD extras include audio commentary by director John Moore, producers John Davis and Wyck Godfrey, and production designer Patrick Lumb, the behind-the-scenes “making-of” featurette “The Phoenix Diaries” (42 min.), four extended scenes (10 min.) including an extended ending, and two segments of deleted scenes with optional commentary by Moore and Lumb (5 min.). Bottom line: a decent extras package for a rote remake.] (R. Blackwelder)