Air Force One

Harrison Ford is calling this movie Air Force Fun, because they had so much fun making it. Me, I would have called it Air Force Dumb. Perhaps they should have taken this movie a little more seriously.

You know the drill, the President's plane has been kidnapped by Ruskie Gary "There is no accent Meryl Streep can do that I can't do" Oldman and his loyal group of soldiers. He's insisting Ford release a radical general of the Soviet army who is hell bent on turning Russia back into Mother Russia. This just after Ford delivered a nasty speech telling the terrorists they should be running scared. Oops

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The story isn't the problem here, even though it's a rehash of the Die Hard premise. The first problem is the dialogue. You've heard it before, and better. The second problem is the acting. Most of the performances are good, in particular Glenn Close, who does very well despite the fact that she has nothing to work with. Dean Stockwell, however, did not fare well here. He was stiff, not quite as tough as he was supposed to be, and couldn't stop me thinking of Quantum Leap. Not good.

The third problem is the execution of the story. There is one scene where Ford is trapped on a stairwell with a guard at the top and a guard walking toward the bottom of the stairs. The next shot is of the guard up top turning his head and Ford scampering into a room in the opposite direction. That is not suspense. That's laughable. And there was a scene where a guy takes a bullet for the President and has a hole blown in him the size of Texas...... and lives.

There were also a lot of shots that were so computer animated that I felt like I was watching a video game. For the money they spent on this movie, it could have looked a lot better. I also expected more from director Wolfgang Petersen, who helmed Das Boot and In the Line of Fire, two far more thrilling movies than this. Hell, even his movie Outbreak blew this away.

This is Harrison Ford's third misstep in a row. His last three characters have all been soupusses. No sense of humor, no charm, it's as if Ford has forgotten what made him a megastar in the first place. I should add, though, that his characters have not been the downfalls of these movies. But it's making me wish they would get into production on that next Indiana Jones movie.