6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 3.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A pilot finds himself caught in a war zone after he's forced to land his commercial aircraft during a terrible storm.
Starring: Gerard Butler, Mike Colter, Yoson An, Paul Ben-Victor, Tony GoldwynAction | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
English: Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 kbps)
English SDH, French, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
Digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
At least within the subset of travelers who are also film fans, it's kind of amazing that anyone has flown since at least The High and the Mighty and/or Airport. But people do keep flying, at least in any number of film or television properties where they quickly find out maybe their travel plans are not going to go exactly as planned. Plane is about as generically named as Airport, and in a way it really doesn't try to exhibit any outsized ambitions, though it at least tweaks the "disaster film" premise a bit by having a troubled airliner actually make a landing, albeit not in the most hospitable of locations. That plot point, which finds the survivors of the crash suddenly confronted with guerrilla type villains, was evidently a bit too close for comfort for some officials in the Philippines, who evidently took umbrage at the depiction of the island of Jolo as under the sway of paramilitary thugs. While that particular aspect at least gives the film a bit of energy, the screenplay also attempts to work in a kind of mismatched partners element courtesy of the teaming of the jet's captain, Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler), and Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter), an international fugitive who was being extradited back to the halls of justice to face a murder charge. Suffice it to say that Torrance and Gaspare together have their own "particular set of skills" to help them overcome any number of obstacles, with the film genuinely upping the angst ante courtesy of uncertainty as to whether the so-called "and the rest" innocent bystander passengers are going to make it through the maelstrom unscathed. The fact that Torrance is white and Gaspare is black, and at least initially in handcuffs, perhaps can't help but recall The Defiant Ones, which is in its own way arguably one of the more surprising referents Plane offers.
Plane is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The closing credits feature the Arri logo, and the IMDb lists a 4K DI. This is an often very impressive looking presentation that offers generally secure detail levels and a really sumptuous accounting of a rather interesting palette. A lot of the first half hour or so of the film is bathed in cooler blue, green and/or teal tones, but fine detail still manages to peek through quite convincingly. When the plane loses power in the storm that ultimately forces the crash landing, things get quite dark, and detail levels understandably ebb (they're arguably improved in the 4K UHD version). The sun drenched atmosphere on the island where the survivors find themselves offer abundant opportunities for both a really beautifully suffused palette, at least for the most part (more about that in a moment), as well as support for excellent fine detail levels. The palette encounters some kind of unusual but I am assuming intentional desaturation in some of the jungle scenes in the middle section of the film. A light dusting of digital grain is apparent, but never very intrusive as it can sometimes be.
Plane features a nicely bombastic Dolby Atmos track that engages the surround channels virtually from the get go and then keeps them engaged consistently enough that my hunch is most audiophiles will be more than satisfied. While some of the early surround activity is relatively "mundane", offering a representation of the background clamor of an airport, and even the initial scenes as the flight begins tend to be subtle in side and rear channel engagement, once the plane encounters a violent storm, there's a whirlwind of surround activity that clearly engages all of the channels and provides a thrilling if disturbing sonic experience. Once the flight has more or less crash landed, a glut of jungle ambient environmental sounds keeps the surround channels active, and of course the frequent action sequences offer nice discrete placement of everything from bones shattering in hand to hand combat to the firing of guns. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English, French and Spanish subtitles are available.
Kind of amusingly, the Main Menu on this disc offers an "in flight" announcement that the film being shown will indeed be Plane, but my hunch is few if any actual flights will be offering this outing for passengers, since flyers are often nervous enough without wondering if they're going to crash land on a Philippine island being run by insurgents. This film is unabashedly preposterous a lot of the time, but it's also genuinely exciting and well staged. Technical merits are solid and the few supplements enjoyable. Recommended.
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