Ahhhh...the 70's disaster movies. What a great, stupid, fun genre.
Airport '77 is the second sequel, third overall, in the popular series. Instead of a boring airport control tower, useless administrators, or even a mid-air collision that takes out both pilots,
Airport '77 goes above and beyond the call of ridiculous by having an in-flight art heist go completely pear shaped and the 747 belly landing in the Bermuda Triangle, magically sinking in minutes, but retaining a massive pocket of air for all to panic in below the waves. To add to the hijinks, the plane has come to rest teetering on the edge of an underwater cliff. So silly, but so much fun. Credibility is stretched to its breaking point here as the laws of physics, and science in general, are completely disregarded here for the sake of story, yet somehow, I found myself completely engrossed and buying into the passengers' plight. These films always fascinated me, as it's fun to watch how many different possible combinations of things going wrong can occur simultaneously.
Yet another spectacularly over-cast ensemble is in place here too. Jack Lemmon as the dashing and heroic captain, cheesy porn star mustache in place. Chrisopher Lee, Olivia De Havilland (yeah,
Gone With The Wind's Melanie), Lee Grant, George Kennedy, James Stewart (the
It's A Wonderful Life star), Darren McGavin, Joseph Cotten, Kathleen Quinlan (REALLY young here), and Gil Gerard also have speaking parts, which explains the running time of two hours. Everyone wanted to have their two cents worth, I guess.
A lot of fun for almost no brainpower,
Airport '77 is a disaster in more ways than one, but damn it's fun. I really need to go watch the one with the Concorde now....7.5/10.
See you tomorrow, and GO WATCH A MOVIE!!
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