December
17, 2004 | I fully realize that not everybody has the
time (or inclination) to take a second or third look at an
older movie immediately before viewing its remake. After all,
unless you're paid to watch movies for a living, you likely
don't think of a visit to the megaplex as an activity that
requires advance research. Still, I can't help but marvel
at how many critics - and, for that matter, how many plain
ol' movie buffs -- are waxing nostalgic about Robert Aldrich's
original Flight of the Phoenix while eviscerating John
Moore's newly released update. Gee whiz, have any of these
people actually looked at Aldrich's film lately? I
think not.
The original
may have seemed a solid and well-crafted piece of work back
in 1965, but it certainly hasn't aged well. (See for yourself,
it's readily available on DVD.) Despite a first-rate cast
led by James Stewart, and a few effectively tense face-offs
between suitably intense characters, Aldrich's film seems
creaky, plodding and, at 149 minutes, impossibly padded. And
how about that goofy "mirage" scene, included in
the original only so they could feature a hubba-hubba dancing
girl in the trailer? (Once again, check out the DVD - the
trailer's there for your amusement.) The '65 Phoenix
is very much a product of its time. And that time, for better
or worse, has lost passed.
The new
version may not be an Oscar contender - unlike the original,
which received Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting
Actor (Ian Bannen) and Film Editing - but at least it moves.
Normally, I'm against remakes as a matter of principle. But
this is one case where a remake actually is an improvement.
Recycling
most plot specifics from the '65 film - which, like the remake,
is based on a novel by Elleston Trevor - Moore's version pivots
on a simple but efficient set-up: After a C-119 cargo transport
plane crash-lands in an unforgiving desert during a raging
sandstorm, veteran pilot Frank Towns (Dennis Quaid in the
role originally played by Stewart) and other surviving passengers
(mostly oil-company employees) face almost certain death as
water and food suppliers dwindle. Just when all seems lost,
a bespectacled eccentric named Elliott (Giovanni Ribisi, appropriately
fussy and often funny) announces that, as an aircraft designer,
he knows how to build a single-engine plane from what's left
of the C-119. Mind you, everybody else will have to do all
the heavy lifting while Elliott supervises. But since nobody
else has a better idea, and there's really nothing better
to do, even the initially dubious Towns agrees to participate
in the last-chance construction project.
During
the original Phoenix, Aldrich subtly insinuated that
the often-rancorous relationship the pilot and the designer
(played in '65 as a humorless German technocrat by Hardy Kruger)
could be read as a metaphor for the age-old conflict between
impulsive individualism and dispassionate reason. John Moore
isn't a filmmaker who places much stock in subtlety - remember,
this is the guy who gave us Behind Enemy Lines, a run-and-gun
popcorn movie with Owen Wilson as a downed naval pilot pursued
by hordes of bloodthirsty Serbians. To his credit, however,
Moore is very good at wringing suspense from the group dynamics
of disparate individuals driven to extremes.
The new
Phoenix, which transports the original movie's plot
from the Sahara to the Gobi Desert, is more demographically
diverse than its all-white, all-male predecessor (two African-Americans
and a woman are along for the ride this time). And while the
new version is conspicuously less star-studded - in addition
to Stewart and Kruger, Aldrich's movie had Richard Attenborough,
Ernest Borgnine, Peter Finch and Dan Duryea - Moore gets generally
fine work from an ensemble that includes Hugh Laurie (of TV's
House) as a snide oil-company executive and Miranda
Otto as a take-no-guff oil-rig boss. The CGI special effects
used for the plane crash are suitably spectacular. And while
Dennis Quaid is seven years younger than James Stewart was
when the latter starred in Aldrich's Phoenix, he looks
every bit as grave and grizzled. Indeed, the older Quaid gets,
the more he demonstrates the right stuff as an effortlessly
authoritative screen presence.
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