Altitude (2010)

First, Sara knows she put everyone at risk. Really? Sara put everyone in this situation. Then fingers and nastiness made towards and blame on Bruce. Sara acted like she did know things and then didn't. Everyone fighting and arguing. WTH. Acting like children up in the air? What were the writers thinking? Then throw in the monster because of Bruce? Where did that come from? Bruce manifested it? All over the place not really cutting it.

Sara's mother died piloting her small plane. New pilot Sara (Jessica Lowndes) is flying her boyfriend Bruce Parker (Landon Liboiron), her cousin Cory (Ryan Donowho), her best friend Mel (Julianna Guill) and Mel's boyfriend Sal (Jake Weary) to a Coldplay concert. A mechanical malfunction sends them climbing. It's terrifying to fix the problem but then something truly supernatural happens.This is somewhat like a Twilight Zone episode. I say this as a compliment but it also means that it's a hour-long story at best. Firstly, Sal is too annoying. It seems to be an often used trope but not one that I particularly like. It would help if one character is actually funny and likable. These are photogenic young actors playing uncompelling characters. What starts out as a tight little thriller turns into a hodgepodge of supernatural messiness. I like the confined space of the aircraft but the movie has problems.

Altitude is a Thriller/Horror movie that never really lives up to anything. Even if you cling to a hope that something large or satisfying will happen, you will be disappointed. This is only made worse by the fact that the acting, dialogue and plot developments do little more than to waste away an hour of the movie before the real events unfold. There is no one major flaw in this movie, however no tweaking would have made this view-able. This movie is fundamentally built around a thin plot which leads to a 20 minute series of events and it makes the whole movie seem disjointed.The plot of the movie is that a group of friends are flying to a concert and the main character in the group of 5 (Lowndes) is the amateur pilot. She offers the best moments in the movie, but even those are scarce. Errors during flight causes the plane to climb higher than intended without the ability to descend. The main cling of fear appeared to be fear of flying and the claustrophobia associated with the small cabin and uncontrollable circumstances surrounding them. However, as evidenced by the movie case, this is a monster movie though you could barely tell because it has so little face time.I am notorious for being able to sit through garbage horror movies just to see the twist or developments at the end. That being said, I waited patiently through the poor dialogue and acting. At first it seems that everything could happen to you and there is no need to suspend your disbelief as with many supernatural horrors. However, the ending and subsequently revealed underlying plot of the movie are very supernatural and unfortunately are flat and unbelievable. It really made me regret sitting through the early goings to get a stupid ending.I would not recommend this movie to anyone as it really has no redeeming qualities. The only people who might find it interesting are pilots, but for every plane focused moment, there are 3 where the physics and mechanics are awful.

A young pilot flies a twin-engine plane into the dark clouds with four friends and mayhem ensues.Although ridiculous due to outrageous inaccuracies regarding planes, cold and oxygen, the movie did have some decent cinematography. And although some of the dialogue was atrocious, the "Twilight Zone" feel of the story was fairly decent.As someone who is deathly afraid of flying (may kryptonite – besides mathematics), the movie played on those fears, though I had to laugh at some of the flying related abominations. Yes, since it's my fear, I try to know as much about flying as possible.The good news is that this is a fast ninety minutes with some decent tension. If writer Paul Birkett had paid more attention to the realities of flight, this would have been a far stronger film and a better horror.