In the pitch meeting stage, “Plane” carried the title “The Plane,” and now it doesn’t. All excess cargo, even if it’s three letters — out the window! There’s too much to handle with this thing already!
Extreme turbulence, a lightning strike, a crash landing onto the bullet-strewn island of Sulu in the Phillippines … a commercial airline pilot teaming up with his toughest passenger (a former French Foreign Legion, wanted for murder) to deal with militant separatists and soar once again to freedom … who says they don’t give you anything when you fly basic economy?
Right now the killer doll movie “M3GAN” is enjoying a critical reception a little above its quality grade, and I’m here to do the same for “Plane.” It’s the junky, janky mid-winter Liam Neeson thriller we used to get with that first flip of the calendar, only this one stars Gerard Butler, and is directed by Jean-Francois Richet, whose two-part gangster biopic “Mesrine” was pretty juicy. This one’s more pulp than juice, but it’s enjoyable.
