Um. Just TURN!
Main Cast: Reginald VelJohnson and Jordan Ladd
Director: Liz Adams
It’s in the movie title. Air Collision. Doesn’t get much self explanatory than that.
In this movie from the shlock-masters at The Asylum, there’s a new satellite navigation system called ACAT that will make air travel safer than it’s ever been in human history. About 5 minutes into the initiation of the ACAT program, one of the satellites malfunctions and crashes to earth. At that exact moment, two planes are taking off at the same time and headed for the same destination. One of those planes happens to be Air Force One.
While in the air, both planes lose their navigation systems and ACAT takes over. Flying blind, and with no way to communicate with the tower, both planes are now on a collision course with each other. On the ground, the best air traffic controller ever, Reginald VelJohnson (who, it should be noted, was against ACAT from the beginning) and his plucky intern are determined to stop this disaster by whatever means necessary.
Man, those Asylum guys. They’re focused, I’ll give them that. Not sure just WHAT it is they’re focused on, but they certainly can crank out these crappy movies like once a week, it seems. Air Collision. Yep. That about sums it up.
Liz Adams, writer and director of Super Cyclone, was tasked with bringing this ridiculous vision to life and it sometimes makes me sad that people who had the presence of mind to decide “writing and directing, THAT’S what I want to do with my life” are then relegated to making movies for The Asylum. Yeah, it’s a paycheck, I guess, but let’s take a look at some of Air Collision’s finer moments.
In one scene, a soldier is reporting back to base through a walkie-talkie. He does this by speaking into the back of the walkie. I know it’s the back because he’s got the belt clip to his mouth. Hmm.
In another scene, the compromised Air Force One, which is apparently loaded with missiles, fires at the approaching passenger plane. Instead of exploding, the missile skims the surface, then breaks through to land in the aisle, without exploding. The resulting hole sucks a flight attendant out–the flight was apparently staffed with only two flight attendants. HOWEVER. When it broke through, the missile apparently knocked a passenger unconscious and he’s on the floor, in the aisle, not buckled in. The missile, also, is lying on the floor, not buckled in. Yet, neither are sucked out along with the flight attendant.
And how do our resourceful passengers repair the hole? They shove everyone’s duffel bags into it, creating a luggage barrier. And it works just fine. The breach is sealed and cabin pressure returns to normal.
I’d lay good money on that not being the least bit possible, let alone plausible.
Later, the planes are headed right for each other, no more than 30 seconds away from impact, yet it takes VelJohnson, who has managed to break into an old decommissioned military bunker to access the analog equipment, which ACAT doesn’t have access to, to tell the pilot he’s about to run into Air Force One. Look out the damn window, dude. It’s RIGHT THERE, you literally cannot miss it. Big ass blue plane at twelve o’clock!
This movie is entertaining only in the sense that it’s ripe for the MST or RiffTrax treatment. There’s not five minutes in here you could compile to make anything that could be taken seriously.
The acting can’t even be considered acting, really. Even VelJohnson, a longtime vet, is even worse than his worst moments in all of “Family Matters” history. But in this case, I can’t blame it all on the actors. NO ONE could be expected to deliver these lines with an ounce of believability.
Other than Veljohnson and Jordan Ladd as flight attendant Lindsey, there’s no one here you’ll recognize, and all of their faces will be gone from your memory before the credits role.
Whether meant to mock an actual Hollywood “blockbuster”, or one of their many “original” films, The Asylum’s Air Collision is just a mess from beginning to end. Nothing about this movie feels legit. Not the dialogue, not the actions of the characters, and certainly not the science behind anything.
I can’t even tell you why I watched it in the first place other than I assumed–rightly so–that it would be just plain dumb and easy to mock. So, sure, if you’re looking for something to crack jokes during, this is a great movie for that. Good for an hour and a half if you and your best friend are killing time before the actual movie you want to go to starts. Otherwise, there’s absolutely no reason in the world anyone should have to subject themselves to this level of incompetence.
C. Dennis Moore is the author of over 60 published short stories and novellas in the speculative fiction genre. Most recent appearances are in the Dark Highlands 2, What Fears Become, Dead Bait 3 and Dark Highways anthologies. His novels are Revelations, and the Angel Hill stories, The Man in the Window, The Third Floor, and The Flip.
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