Director: Takashi Shimizu
Year: 2014
Country: USA/Japan
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Taking off on a regular flight, a commercial plane heading for Japan suddenly encounters a series of strange events through their flight that signals something might be onboard with them killing off the passengers and flight crew forcing those left behind to battle the strange nemesis.
Review:
This here was a decent if slightly flawed effort. Among the more enjoyable aspects of this one is the fact that this one really plays with the concept of the fear of flying incredibly well. This one really generates a lot of potentially intriguing scenarios that generate some healthy suspense tactics throughout here, from the early freakout with the deceased passenger in front of the others or the continuing notion of the plane dropping cabin pressure due to exessive turbulence that rocks the plane. The second such sequence, where it goes into the prolonged shaking that generates the plenty of genuine suspense with the extreme behaviors usually associated with airplane travel and in the process of going through these different scenes and setups the film builds a rather nice and frightening fear of flying.
As this builds into the later supernatural scenes that tack onto the fear of flying as well as being rather freaky on their own, from the scenes of the fog appearing in the plane to seeing objects move about behind them and all of the occurrences of the figures seen coming out of the darkness to attack the others which is quite an impressive and really generates some strong moments here in the second half as these scenes are far more frequent in both quantity and intensity. Since these start bumping off the passengers far more frequently, the supernatural tendencies give way to a rather fine twist in the later half where it really has some fun going along with the fun it generates through this setup.
Considering the all-star cast, this one offers some merely adequate performances. Head Flight Attendant Laura Baxter, played by Leslie Bibb offers a fine one-note performance as someone trying to keep everyone calm while holding a secret about her affair. The married couple, Brad and Pia Martin, respectively played by Ryan Kwanten and Amy Smart, come together rather nicely as the couple on the rocks that come together in the end to save themselves. Newlywed Jacinta Bloch, played by Scout Taylor-Compton, comes off rather nicely with her neurotic, clean-freak persona that is forced to put her phobias on hold to help get herself out of the situation. As for the rest of the cast, nobody really else stands out or does anything really special to stand out here so it just makes for an overall tolerable time. These here manage to hold this one up over the few minor flaws.
The main issue holding this one down is the fact that there's just no real point to the inclusion of the twist at all. This one doesn't really have any kind of setup or early hints at all throughout here, simply just appearing out of nowhere and coming out of nowhere simply for the sake of having a terrifying final half that doesn't really offer any kind of emotional payoff anyway. There really isn't any way this one offers a kind of early warning about the situation which simply makes the whole thing even more ludicrous than it already is. Likewise, the film also struggles to get going in the early half where nothing much really happens for long stretches of time which makes this a tough one to get going on. The lack of real supernatural action here does manage to make this even tougher to get into with the lack of action to drag out this section of the film. Otherwise, there's not much else in terms of gore or kills to really hold this one back.
Overview: ***/5
Although it has a few minor bits about it that hold it back, the film has enough to like about it and remains watchable throughout that it serves an admittedly watchable final mark overall. This is really only worthwhile to fans of the creative side or those that really enjoy these kinds of supernatural thrillers, while those who aren't should definitely heed caution with this one.
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