Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		2.0
Audio		2.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		1.5

The Concorde: Airport '79 Blu-ray Movie Review

Can't kill the Concorde. Can kill the franchise.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman August 5, 2016

Note: 'The Concorde: Airport '79' is currently only available as part of a boxed set with other 'Airport' films.

It's probably wise that Universal put the brakes on the Airport franchise after The Concorde: Airport '79 slogged its way to critical and box office failure. Coming off the high of the original's character-driven excellence, the sequel's high-flying excitement (a movie that spawned a genre parody film), and a third picture that wasn't exactly sunken treasure but decent enough entertainment, the studio green-lit the fourth film, this one focusing on an intercontinental flight on board the then relatively new and shiny Concorde jet, which has since been scrapped and left to live in the annals of aviation history. It's too bad that its cinematic namesake can't live up to the legacy of either the jet or the Airport franchise. Airport '79 struggles its way through a bland story, a disinterested cast, lousy visual effects, and poor pacing, easily the worst of an otherwise fun franchise.

Patroni from every direction.

Captain Joe Patroni (George Kennedy) is co-piloting the Concorde with Paul Metrand (Alain Delon) on a trans-Atlantic flight from D.C. to Paris and then, on to Moscow where the Olympic games are taking place. On board the flight is Maggie Whelan (Susan Blakely), a TV news reporter who comes into possession of red-hot information: the head of a weapons manufacturing firm, Kevin Harrison (Robert Wagner), has been illegally selling arms to every bad actor on the planet. His company is about to test-fire a brand-new military-grade drone which he and a cohort secretly reprogram to destroy the Concorde. Can Patroni save his passengers and crew and make it safely to Paris and Moscow, or will disaster yet again strike a flight in which he is personally involved?

The Concorde: Airport '79 plays with the look, feel, and flow of a TV movie, not a major motion picture. A far cry from the more involved production values, crisper writing, and smoother filmmaking of the originals, and the first two in particular, the film flounders without much of a sense of purpose, content to simply throw various in-air obstacles at the Concorde, the only question being which, if any, will finally put the plane in serious peril that a couple of barrel rolls and a flare gun can't solve. The action scenes, which are little more than the plane's cabin spinning in circles and crude visual effects that are worthy only of a cut-rate late 70s/early 80s TV show, are the only source of tension or dramatic interest in the movie. The core story -- a weapons manufacturer trying to kill someone on board the plane before she can spill the beans -- isn't particularly compelling, at least not with this level of characterization and with the rather forced-in story lines around the other passengers who, again, don't amount to a thing other than bodies to fill up space. The story would have probably worked better reworked and condensed as an episode of Airwolf rather than a feature-length picture in a franchise that had already run its course.

George Kennedy. Poor George. He gets his biggest role in an Airport film yet -- he's the main character, the Concorde's pilot, the man around whom most everything that has to do with aviation and saving the day revolves -- and his performance comes across as so hammy that it wouldn't come as a surprise to discover he was putting back some adult beverages during the shoot. The performance is insanely loose and the character is poorly defined. "My wife died in a car wreck a year ago!" he proclaims almost giddily in one scene. How his Joe Patroni devolved from critical mainstay in the original to well defined support in the second to wrenched-in familiar face in the third to pushed to the top of the credits list yet, at the same time, shoved to the bottom of character development hell in the fourth is probably the single most interesting thread throughout the entire Airport franchise. He's surrounded by the typical mainstay sort of characters who, beyond a few cutaway shots and lines of dialogue meant to keep the audience on-edge for their well-being, add nothing of value to the movie. There's the mother hurrying a new heart to her sickly son, a singer and a Saxophone player, and some Russian olympians, one of whom has a mute daughter with him. That's just about it. Even the venerable Robert Wagner can't summon a solid performance. He scowls well enough when necessary, but the part is so devoid of content beyond "bad guy" that even he cannot find much charge for the character.

The Concorde: Airport '79 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Concorde: Airport '79's 1080p transfer is a far cry from the other presentations in the series. It's rather soft, with unassuming, poorly defined details. Textures rarely excite, not clothes, not upholstery on the plane, not instrument clusters in the cockpit. Fine detail rarely pushes all that hard at all, leaving viewers with only a little more than basic definition. Colors are a little more flush and healthy. Reds and blues are particularly stout, standing nicely apart from the late 70s-era browns, beiges, and oranges that feature rather prominently throughout. Noise is thick and clumpy throughout, rarely relenting in density. Grain often appears frozen in place. Print wear is obvious, heavier at some junctures than others. The image does tighten up a little bit about an hour into the movie. There's a noticeable uptick in resolution and clarity. Grain sometimes almost appears free from its solid state. While its best scenes never approach the quality of the previous films, they're more than welcome, though short-lived, in a rather unimpressive presentation.

The Concorde: Airport '79 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Concorde: Airport '79's DTS-HD Master Audio Mono soundtrack feels ever-so-slightly more open and fluid than the tracks accompanying its most recent two predecessors. That said, there's precious little sense of spread to the ends of the stage or definition to music. The most raw, basic notes are all that are available. There's a fair, certainly not enticing or engrossing, sense of weight and depth to heavier effects, like jet engine rumbles and explosions. Chaos on the flight -- screams, falling suitcases, and the like -- never stretch the stage nor come across as all that realistically detailed. Basic dialogue is fine, pushing far enough to the center and playing with appreciable clarity.

The Concorde: Airport '79 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

All that's included is the theatrical trailer for The Concorde: Airport '79 (480i, 2:56). No top menu is included. The special feature, as well as audio, subtitle, and chapter options, must be accessed in-film via the pop-up menu.

The Concorde: Airport '79 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Concorde: Airport '79 is a disappointing way to end an otherwise enjoyable franchise. A Disaster film in the wrong way, the picture limps through its nearly two-hour runtime feeling more like a cut-rate TV movie than a feature film in a prominent franchise. Performances are sluggish to downright silly, visual effects stand out for all the wrong reasons, and tension is practically nil. Universal's Blu-ray is equally disappointing, containing no supplements of value but, more critical to the release, a shoddy 1080p transfer and a drab lossless sound. Since it's currently only available in the box set with the other films, there's no reason to say "skip it," but don't except much after watching the first three.