Ready for take off???
I've usually enjoyed movies Jodie Foster has starred in and Flightplan is no exception. Foster plays Kyle Pratt. A woman who has just endured a horrible tragedy of losing her husband. Now she must face another tragedy: the loss of her daughter. Flightplan is one of those movies that you have to be careful about what reviews you read. Especially if you want to see the movie yourself, you don't want the ending spoiled. I'll try to keep this review pretty basic as to not spoil the ending for you.
The first ten minutes of the movie really gets your mind going. First you see Pratt walking towards a casket. Now my first thought was that it was her daughter in the coffin. I was going to be pretty disappointed as I felt they were going to give away the movie right in the beginning and the rest would be all filler. Well, to my delight, it was her husband in the coffin. So, I haven't spoiled anything for you yet.
Pratt, her daughter Julia and her husband in the casket are enroute from Berlin to New York. Both Pratt and Julia are still traumatized by the loss of their father/husband. Their gate is called and they're the first to board the new state-of-the-art 747. This plane is immense compared to today's 747s and other aircraft. Before long, there is an uneventful take off and Pratt falls asleep. When she wakes up, Julia is missing and no one knows where she is. A search of the plane turns up nothing. The plot thickens, as the passenger manifest doesn't even show Julia as a passenger on the aircraft or having checked in prior to departure. You really begin to wonder if she was on the plane to begin with? I won't give that away as you need to find out on your own. The only thing I will say about the ending of Flightplan is that it was good. I really look forward to a good ending and a sense of closure. Flightplan had both of these qualities. I really wish I could comment more on the ending because it was so good. However, that would just ruin it for you.
My favorite Jodie Foster movie by far is Contact. I thought she did an excellent acting job in that movie. She did pretty well in Flightplan. I say pretty well, because few parts were a little dry coming from her. It's nothing that hurts the movie overall, but it just made me grimace, especially knowing her acting ability. All of the other acting was done very well and helped bring the movie together as a whole.
There wasn't much of a need for CGI or special effects in this movie. Come to think of it, minus one explosion, there wasn't much CGI at all. This movie simply didn't need it either. The audio was nothing impressive, but good enough for the movie. You won't miss anything by watching this on your home theater.
Flightplan was well written and well scripted. It definitely had an original theme, which kept me interested the entire time. I'll be adding this to my DVD collection when it comes out. It is worth a watch in the theaters and if you can afford it with today's movie prices, I'd say go for it.
"Flightplan" opens September 23, 2005 and is rated PG13. Drama, Thriller. Directed by Robert Schwentke. Written by Peter A. Dowling, Billy Ray. Starring Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean.
