While in Amarillo for Christmas, I went with my father-in-law to see “Flight of the Phoenix”, a remake of the 1965 film of the same name. I’ve never seen the Jimmy Stewart original, but from what I’ve read, it is almost identical to this version which, in my opinion, takes most of the wind out of the sails of the remake.

The basic plot is that a group of oil field workers are leaving their drilling site in the desert aboard a cargo plane. The plane crashes in a sand storm and when all hope of rescue is lost, they decide to build a new plane from the wreckage of the first one.

What a great plot, eh?! Add to that all sorts of character conflicts in the cast and this should be a real hum-dinger. However, comes out flat.

You can’t blame the actors. I felt that every part was played to perfection. You can’t blame the effects. This show has one of the best plane crash sequences I’ve seen.

So, if the plot is good, the acting is good, and the effects are good, what could go wrong? How about a script? I’m not sure this movie had one. I envision the cast, before each scene was filmed, gathering around a little TV and VCR playing the original movie and saying, “Yeah, let’s do that.” There is no character development, the plot is handled like a rollercoaster, and the dialog sounds like a top-notch junior high drama club play. (“I think a bee stung you on your big dumb ass.” Oh, if only I were making that up.)

In the end, you have a very entertaining story being told rather badly which earns “Flight of the Phoenix” two grins out of a possible five.