DVD Movie Rating for: Airplane!

5 out of 5

Movie Plot of: Airplane!

This is a spoof of the airport disaster movies. When the crew of an airplane are struck by some form of virus, the fate of the passengers depends on an ex-war pilot who is the only one able to land the plane safely! The passengers represent a selection of interesting wacky characters who seem to take every word for its literal meaning.

Ex-Navy pilot Ted Striker has been nervous about flying ever since THAT incident during the war. He's on a flight which would cause anyone concern: he seems to be the only sane person aboard. Of course, everything that could possibly go wrong on this flight will go wrong... what do you expect with a co-pilot who doesn't realize he's a basketball star, and an air traffic controller with a substance abuse problem?

DVD Production Details of: Airplane!

Starring: Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty

Director: David Zucker, Jerry Zucker

Format: Color, Widescreen, Closed-captioned, Dolby

Studio: Paramount Home Video

DVD Release Date: October 24, 2000
DVD Features:
Theatrical trailer(s)

Audio Commentary

Widescreen anamorphic format

Cast of the movie: Airplane!

• Robert Hays .... Ted Striker
• Julie Hagerty .... Elaine Dickinson
• Lloyd Bridges .... Steven McCrosky
• Leslie Nielsen .... Dr. Rumack
• Robert Stack .... Capt. Rex Kramer
• Peter Graves .... Capt. Clarence Oveur
• Lorna Patterson .... Randy
• Stephen Stucker .... Johnny Hinshaw
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar .... Roger Murdock
• Otto .... Himself, The Inflatable Autopilot
• Jim Abrahams .... Religious Zealot #6
• Frank Ashmore .... Victor Basta
• Jonathan Banks .... Gunderson
• Craig Berenson .... Paul Carey
• Barbara Billingsley .... Jive Lady

Photo Gallery of the movie: Airplane!

Click on one of the thumbnails to see the full size, high resolution photographs

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Reviews of the movie: Airplane!

The quintessential movie spoof that spawned an entire genre of parody films, the original Airplane! still holds up as one of the brightest comedic gems of the '80s, not to mention of cinema itself (it ranked in the top 5 of Entertainment Weekly's list of the 100 funniest movies ever made). The humor may be low and obvious at times, but the jokes keep coming at a rapid-fire clip and its targets--primarily the lesser lights of '70s cinema, from disco films to star-studded disaster epics--are more than worthy for send-up. If you've seen even one of the overblown Airport movies then you know the plot: the crew of a filled-to-capacity jetliner is wiped out and it's up to a plucky stewardess and a shell-shocked fighter pilot to land the plane. Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty are the heroes who have a history that includes a meet-cute à la Saturday Night Fever, a surf scene right out of From Here to Eternity, a Peace Corps trip to Africa to teach the natives the benefits of Tupperware and basketball, a war-ravaged recovery room with a G.I. who thinks he's Ethel Merman (a hilarious cameo)--and those are just the flashbacks! The jokes gleefully skirt the boundaries of bad taste (pilot Peter Graves to a juvenile cockpit visitor: "Joey, have you ever seen a grown man naked?"), with the high (low?) point being Hagerty's intimate involvement with the blow-up automatic pilot doll, but they'll have you rolling on the floor. The film launched the careers of collaborators Jim Abrahams (Big Business), David Zucker (Ruthless People), and Jerry Zucker (Ghost), as well as revitalized such B-movie actors as Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Robert Stack, and Leslie Nielsen, who built a second career on films like this. A vital part of any video collection.

Abrahams and Co., have a ball with this spoof of the melodramatic "Airport" films. They're pretty funny too. If you see the original "Airport" first, then watch this film, the experience only gets more humurous.

The 1980 movie Airplane! is probably the best farce ever produced. There were films that followed that tried to emulate its success. There was Airplane II - The Sequel, the Naked Gun series, and Hot Shots, for example.

Well meaning but totally confused advocates of political correctness should avoid this film. Then again, any advocate of political correctness is totally confused.

Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker admit that this is a low budget movie and every precaution was taken to avoid spending too much money. It is a lampoon of practically every disaster movie ever made but it mostly intended to be a parody of the movie Zero Hour. Many of the lines in the film are directly from Zero Hour.

The movie starts out at Los Angeles International Airport where there are many sight and voice gags. We meet one of the stars of the show, Robert Hays, who plays an ex-fighter pilot who lost most of his squadron during a raid. He's now a cab driver who's afraid of airplanes. We also meet his girlfriend Elaine (Julie Hagerty) who is a stewardess (notice I didn't say flight attendant) and has decided to move out of their apartment and leave Ted forever. Captain Oveur (Peter Graves) is also introduced. He is the pilot of the airplane and, as we discover later, has an unusual fondness for little boys.

The movie was written to take place on a propeller driven plane but the studio objected and wanted it up to date. The producers relented and used a jet plane but whenever you see it on the screen, you hear propeller engines. The flashbacks show stock footage of World War II combat planes in action.

As the plane begins to taxi, we see a young man standing in the door of the plane yelling good-bye to has girlfriend who is running alongside. This is a satire of a scene from the movie Since You Went Away where the girl is running alongside a train.

The airplane takes off along with Ted Striker who has purchased a ticket and taken the flight to Chicago to try to convince Elaine to come back to him. Along the way, he tells his seatmates boring stories about him and Elaine. The stories are so boring that the people listening to him eventually commit suicide in horrible ways such as hanging, hara-kiri, or dousing themselves with gasoline and lighting a match.

After the meal is served, many of the passengers become ill. The stewardesses (doesn't that rankle you politically correct people?) search for a doctor and eventually find one in Dr. Rumack who is played by Leslie Nielsen. He diagnosis food poisoning and concludes that anyone who had the fish for dinner will eventually become violently ill. The food poisoning incapacitates the pilot, co-pilot and navigator and the only one left to fly the plane is our reluctant hero, Ted Striker.

The head of Chicago Flight Control, Steve McCroskey (played by Lloyd Bridges) calls in a veteran pilot, Rex Kramer (played by Robert Stack) to talk Ted Striker through flying the plane. It turns out that Rex Kramer was Ted Striker's commanding officer during the war and there is no love lost between the two.

Needless to say, Ted Striker does eventually land the plane, as is the case in most old airplane movies.

There are almost too many sight gags to look for in this movie. You can watch it quite a few times before you are confident you've seen them all.