Collision Course (2012)

COLLISION COURSE is another cookie cutter disaster/thriller movie from Fred Olen Ray. I noticed that Jason Bourque, the man responsible for directing such movies as ASTEROID: FINAL IMPACT and DOOMSDAY PROPHECY, helped to write the script. Unsurprisingly, this is the sort of film shown on the SyFy Channel, a safe, bland, and extremely derivative type of movie that copies pretty much every plane thriller in existence.The story is about solar flares and the havoc they're wreaking here on Earth. Some people are trapped on an out-of-control passenger plane when the pilot is killed by a flare and the co-pilot is knocked out cold. The only person with the power to save the passengers and crew is a writer who knows a thing or two about flying planes.It's amazing that a film with a potentially exciting premise like COLLISION COURSE can be so dull. Fred Olen Ray is up to his old tricks here, incorporating stock footage of expensive stuff (i.e. explosions) from other movies and generally fumbling the non-existent suspense. An ageing Tia Carrera is the best actor they can come up with and her acting is very poor.

'Collision Course' tells the story of a plane which is hit by an EMP due to a solar flare. The pilot is killed, the co-pilot injured and the electronic systems including the auto-pilot are badly damaged. Kate Parks (Tia Carrere) is a passenger on board; she was married to a pilot and wrote a book about airplanes, so at least she knows a little bit more about flying than the other passengers. Jake Ross (David Chokachi, whom I remember from 'Witchblade') is happy about any help he can get from her, because another plane is, as the title mentions, on a collision course...The characters get some background story, since somehow between one emergency and the next, they find time to think about personal trouble with their family members. 'Collision Course' certainly doesn't win any prizes for innovation, but it's OK. I voted 6 of 10.

I personally love aviation, and science fiction is always a thriller. I thought the two would be a good mixture in this film, but I was wrong. As a common rule, any movie below a 7.5 rating on IMDb should be avoided, (unless Nicholas Cage happens to be in it). Anyway, I broke my rule- and now I regret it. Honestly, a sixth grader could have written better script than this, and could have provided better CGI as well. The title is "Collision course", but the movie is not based around an air- collision at all. It revolves around a solar flare causing an EMP. The near miss air collision is only one of many events to occur. Everyone is stuck in the Chicago terminal after their connecting flight is canceled, (big surprise). The desk clerk is frantically trying to calm everyone, including a very dogmatic hillbilly. Suddenly, the CEO of the company happens to show up, and gets everyone a connecting flight, YAY! Everyone gets on board, and turns out the CEO just so happens to be the Flight Steward too- and is the only flight steward. Kate Parks, whom the story sort of revolves around, calls her inconsiderate teenage daughter and tells her to go to grandmas for the night. We hear a lot of unneeded dialog. Everyone is seated- and the hillbilly happens to sit behind a bearded man. The hillbilly nudges his partner and says, "Oh boy, we got Bin Laden on board!" (The script writers portray the southerner very stereo-typically, as racist and as a xenophobe- which wasn't necessary for this movie.) The pilots get the all clear to take off- now they are in the air. The Captain then reaches to turn on the autopilot- and suddenly, the EMP strikes! ZAAAAAAAPPPPPPPP! Both Pilots get electrocuted for some odd reason, and the plane starts shaking. The Captain is dead, and copilot is unconscious- BUT THE PLANE IS STILL FLYING! Woo, thank goodness he turned on the auto pilot before he died! We see Grandma Parks, who works a restaurant by herself- gets thrown off a stool because of the EMP. She falls down- and her stove starts spewing out propane- AND THERE IS A LIT CANDLE INSIDE!!!!! Not much time left until Grandma fries! *Back to the plane in the air. Everyone is stressed. The CEO/Flight Attendant decides to check on the pilots after a few minutes. He knocks on the door- no response. He then uses his KEYS to get inside the cockpit. How convenient! They call in a medic, who figures out they died of electrocution. Osama then suspects it was an EMP, and the Hillbilly then thinks Osama planted an EMP Bomb in the plane! YES, IT MUST HAVE BEEN AN EMP BOMB; ITS SO EASY TO GET PAST CUSTOMS WITH THOSE! The southerner guy continues to be a nuisance. Osama then says, "I was born in Nebraska." The Hillbilly then says, "Sure OBAMA, until I see a birth certificate, I Ain't buying it!" -This is a direct quote. Alright, you get the picture. The Auto Pilot shorts out- everyone panics- Kate has to disable the autopilot, but the buttons are stuck. The copilot then stops breathing- they use the defibrillator, and he wakes up. YAY! He tells Kate to go in the cargo hold and flip the breaker. The Hillbilly volunteers to go with her. They go down in the massive cargo hold- which has 8 foot high ceilings. Very cozy, more room down there than in the cabin! Kate finds the breaker- and flips it. The plane goes haywire. A dog then gets loose and tries to bite several people on board. But- the dog trainer calms the dog. The plane is nearing the airport- only two air traffic controllers are on duty. They can't communicate with any aircraft. Several planes collide killing many people. One of the controllers happens to be a hacker for the Air Force- he hacks into NASA's satellite system, and calls everyone on the plane. He tells Kate she needs to land soon. NASA finds out someone hacked into the system- and locks him out. DARN! Kate has to land the plane by herself! She starts pushing buttons, (as if she knows what she is doing). They are coming in fast! (500 mph to be exact) She says, "Were coming in too fast, I will have to try a reverse maneuver and land the plane! My husband died trying to do this!" She turns the plane to the side, and lands safely. Whoooooooo. Big relief. An inexperienced passenger just happens to land a plane traveling 500 mph- and stops in the middle of the runway with plenty of room to spare. I would list every stupid storyline if I could, but I am limited to 1,000 words. You have to watch the movie to see every stupid thing. Wait, don't watch it. Alright, let's wrap this up. I really hate this movie with a passion. It is a disgrace to all Sci-Fi. The story line is horrible- and the dialog is cheesy. Like I said before, a sixth grader could have written better dialog. It seemed like to me the story writers lacked any knowledge in what an EMP really does, and how to write a story in general. In the movie- the EMP targets SOME electronics. In real life, an EMP would FRY every electronic. So, in reality, the plane shouldn't have been working at all- no lights, no electricity, and no autopilot. Somehow, the ATC works, and the telephone lines work. This film was jam packed with every scenario during a solar storm, but still was not accurate at all. It's like a hodgepodge of very unfortunate events on a plane- dog escapes, pilots electrocuted, and they nearly hit another plane. This movie should be used in Guantanamo bay for torture. That's all I have to say.

This is apparently an American TV movie in that it was produced for SyFy. I don't know enough about movie-making to understand why TV movies have a such a different feel than other movies. The writing? The acting? In any case, this movie certainly felt like a TV movie. (Yes, I watched it on TV. I've been too busy to go out.)For the first hour, I was also absolutely convinced that this had to be a Canadian TV movie, my initial impression being confirmed by the earnest hoser approach of the flight attendant, the redneck's weeping, and the "racism sucks" bit. But, nope, it was apparently not a Canadian movie.The problem is the inept writing, I guess. The airplane-movie clichés are rolled out, one after the other. The dialogue had us squirming. Why do some movie makers feel that people will bare their souls when disaster strikes? Some of the dialogue was just wrong. Why would the flight attendant who was putting in extra hours to provide for his family continue to put in extra hours after his family fell apart? After a while, we became morbidly curious to see what they would bring out next. I can only assume the director had to produce a script overnight.The over-the-top acting was appropriate for the context, I suppose. You wouldn't call it real acting, but then I don't think this would have been possible in the circumstances. I suppose they were going for cult status from the beginning. Was this a deliberate attempt at schlock?Although to be fair, there were a few mildly amusing and interesting bits, here and there. Everyone likes airplane movies, but this one wasn't realistic enough. Many of us have flown enough to experience what passengers will do in serious turbulence. (For one thing, some of the girls and women will start screaming like sirens. Ladies, it doesn't help.) There have also been some shockingly realistic plane crash scenes in the movies lately. The last ten years have seen CGI explode in its sophistication. I'm afraid we're a different audience than the ones who were gobbling this kind of thing up in 1975.How is this even science fiction? It annoys me that there is so much great science fiction out there, but so little of it gets shown on SyFy. Why aren't they showing Battlestar Galactica? Or any of the Star Trek series? Many of the movies and shows that I think of as being brilliant science fiction are not being shown. How can they even call themselves a sci fi station? They're not, right?