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Year:    2004
Studio:  20th Century Fox,
         Aldrich Group,
         Davis Entertainment Company
Feature: 3/5
Extras:  3/5

Flight of the Phoenix is a remake of the movie of the same name that was made a few decades ago. The concept is the same, a somewhat older workhorse airplane crashlands in the desert, hundreds of miles from civilization. The survivors have no hope of rescue and decide to build a new airplane out of the wreckage of the old one. Through trials and tribulations they succeed in making the airplane and the survivors fly back to civilization.

Dennis Quaid (as Frank Towns) and Tyrese (as AJ) play the airplane pilot and copilot. These two guys are not leaders and as far as they're concerned they're here to transport a bunch of losers back to civilization. The losers have been working on getting oil from an oil rig in Mongolia, to no avail. They are led by Kelly (Miranda Otto) and include the mysterious extra, Elliott (Giovanni Ribisi).

It's mostly a movie about man against the elements as they have to deal with the relentless heat and lack of water plus the sandstorms. It's also man against himself as the survivors occasionally bicker and turn on each other. Although there is some action it's mostly a drama shot on location in Africa. One thing about the movie is that the scenery is all authentic and quite stunning at times.
Extras

Commentary with director John Moore, producers John Davis and Wyck Godfrey, and some other guy. Not much talking about the actors. Mostly talking about the difficulties of shooting on location in the middle of nowhere.

The Phoenix Diaries. 41 minutes of video footage. Behind the scenes stuff without any narration or sensical editing to give it a "you are there" feeling.

Extended Scenes - 4 existing scenes with new material that didn't make it.

Deleted Scenes - 2 brand new scenes (with commentary).

Copyright (c) 2005 Kevin C. Wong
Page Created: March 27, 2005
Page Last Updated: March 27, 2005