Plane has a fairly simple premise: a passenger airliner crash-lands on an island controlled by separatists who routinely kidnap and ransom foreigners. When the separatists find out about the plane’s passengers, all potential new victims of their operation, the plane’s captain (Gerard Butler) has to find a way to get them back.
Plane is by no means a great film and there’s certainly a lot of weak points to the film. Most of the characters aren’t very memorable, and there’s very little effort made to actually develop them. However, Plane does some things right and it’s action scenes are usually very good, partially because they’re so varied. The plane’s crash sequence isn’t something that’s rushed through to get to the fighting and shooting; in fact, it’s one of the most impressive scenes in the film. The effects around it and the camerawork captured the feeling so well it actually triggered my fear of flying while I was watching the film.
Aside from the crash, the film has a few hand-to-hand brawls and gun fights, including a one-take fight scene between Gerard Butler and one of the separatists and a massive shoot-out around the crashed plane. A lot of times, these generic action movies have an elaborate premise that’s really just an excuse to be trotting out action set-pieces that are entirely interchangeable with others in the same genre. The same is not true for Plane, which was more interested in capitalizing on its premise even when it could’ve just abandoned it for mindless action scenes, and I really respect that about the film. While it’s still a somewhat forgettable action movie, it was entertaining enough and did enough things right that I walked out with positive feelings.
Characters: 5.5/10 (x2)
The vast majority of the cast is pretty faceless. Gerard Butler’s a likeable enough protagonist and Mike Colter’s character is cool, but there’s so little development for them that they don’t really stand out. They’re functional characters, but the movie is at its weakest the few times it expects you to get invested in the character moments.
Plot: 6.5/10 (x2)
A lot of great action movies involve ordinary people being forced into extraordinary situations. While this movie didn’t make me care about the characters, it did make them feel like down to earth people and that made the setting work better than it would’ve otherwise. It’s a cool premise, but nothing groundbreaking, so it kept me entertained for the hour + 45 minute runtime, but it’s nothing when any extra depth to it.
Action: 7/10
All of the action scenes are entertaining and, somewhat surprisingly, are well shot. Most action movies have the fight scenes edited and filmed pretty poorly, but this movie made all the action easy to follow. There’s not a huge amount of tension in some of them, but they still work well.
Tone: 7/10
This is a movie that’s not light-hearted or dark. It honestly doesn’t have much of a discernible tone and, while that may sound like a negative, I generally like movies to have a more balanced tone instead of being all jokes or all serious. There’s not really any silly moments that I can think of, nor are there any overly dark moments, so there’s no jarring tonal shifts at any point in the movie.
Pacing: 7/10
I would understand why someone would get bored at parts of this film, but I was interested in all three acts of the film (the plane crash, the survivors trying to contact home and then the conflict with the separatists) and I thought the film allocated the time between them very well. If someone finds those plot points less interesting than I did, they’ll likely disagree with me about the pacing.
Dialogue: 6/10
There’s no really cringe-worthy dialogue or anything overly cheesy, but there’s also nothing really memorable.
Creativity: 6/10
I don’t know that this exact plot has ever been used before (I assume something very similar has been used at least once, though), but there’s not an extra level of creativity in this movie that makes it stick with you.
Visuals/Design: 7/10
I’ve already praised the opening crash sequence, which was extremely effective. Other than that, all the visuals are fine but nothing that really stands out.
Final Score: 64
Plane adds another decent entry into the action movie genre that does just enough right to stay enjoyable. It’s not a must-see, but I’d say it’s worth at least one watch for action-movie fans (though it might be better to wait until it’s streamable).
Final Recommendation: Watch
Comments