I don’t go out to the movies much.  Generally speaking, everything that’s swept through the local cineplexes over the past year or three has sucked unbelievably.  Earlier this year, Hollywood was bemoaning their worst box-office slump in the history of forever, blaming it on internet piracy and declining attention spans.  I’m pretty sure they would have blamed it on MP3s, but that buzzword expired a half decade ago.

So when I got a call that some former coworkers were getting together to see Flightplan, I had to go.  After all, this was my chance to see a big-screen guided tour of the new Airbus a380.  And with the movie getting rave reviews, how bad can it be?

First off, any movie can get rave reviews.  Pick up the box for Hittin’ It or Starship Troopers 2:  We Built This City and you’ll find “rave” reviews from major industry players like “Gene Altman, KSDK, North Dakota: OMG this movie is teh funnay!”  In the event that a movie is so catastrophically bad that not even Janitor Frank will give it a positive review, studios just edit what they get.  “I’ve never before seen such a pile of crap, unworthy of being run over by a moving van or hit by a piece of dead antelope.  My daughter, who once loved going to the movies, thought so little of it that she ran home and set fire to her eyes so she’d never have to look upon such an unbelievably bad pantload of a movie ever again” simply becomes:  “I’ve never before seen such a … moving … piece.  My daughter … loved … it!”

Off-track rant.  Sorry.  Anyway, Flightplan started off ok.  Mother and her little girl take a flight back to the US after her husband dies.  Only partway into the flight, the daughter disappears - AND NOBODY FINDS HER!  Sounds interesting, right?

From the trailers, you’d expect some psychological thriller.  I mean, they come right out and say that the daughter never existed in the first place.  So it’s not unrealistic to expect something like Identity or  The Game.  Unfortunately, about 15 minutes into the movie the twist is blatantly obvious, and you realize that you just paid $20 to see something more along the lines of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

See, the mother (Jody Foster) is leaving Germany with her daughter because her husband just committed suicide.  Shortly into the flight, the mother decides to take a nap.  When she wakes up, her daughter is missing.  Not only that, but nobody on board remembers seeing her in the first place.  The plot falls apart when The Arab is introduced.  He must have taken her, so the mother and two passengers assault the Arab.  Except — and here’s the plot twist — OMG THE ARAB DIDN’T TAKE HER!  OMG!  We find out later that the girl was sleeping, and everything’s ok after all, except that the plane has now landed in Finland, and for no apparent reason a minivan is waiting in a nearby hanger where it will drive them across the ocean and into the US.  Only now, the ocean is inhabited by giant hybrid flying/swimming dinosaurs who were created by the toxic runoffs from the airplane manufacturing process.  Also, the Arab is beaten and thrown off the plane for good measure.  And despite having a crazy woman running around the plane screaming, banging on the cockpit door, and assaulting another passenger, the onboard air marshall pretty much does crossword puzzles the entire flight.  There’s even a big explosion-and-dance number, which the woman survives without so much as a singe by by ducking her head.  Finally, if you’re ever bored on an Airbus a380, the movie reveals that you can deploy the oxygen masks for no reason by unplugging some headphone cords up in the attic; presumably the flight crew will also allow you to peruse the avionics bay at your leisure.  The movie ends — I swear I am not making this up — with the mother and daughter riding off into the sunset in the minivan, and the daughter asking “Mommy, are we there yet?”

Ok - that’s not a real spoiler, though it’s close (there are separate flying and swimming dinosaurs; a single hybrid dinosaur is just too unbelievable).  The movie is awful.  It is bad beyond belief.  Although it was kind of cool to see the a380 in that much detail, I’m pretty sure CRY_WOLF would have had better acting, Airplane definitely had better writing, and Sleepaway Camp’s twist was less cliche.  Save your money.