Flight World War II - move over "Final Countdown"

[Shawnster]

"After Flight 42 travels through a storm they find themselves in France, 1940, during World war II."

Watched this treasure on Netflix last week. It has the feel of a B-movie of the week or something you'd see on SyFy (but I've not watched SyFy in years so what do I know?) I thought it was quite entertaining despite not being a big budget blockbuster with an all-star cast.

As the above quote from IMDB says, the movie is a different take on "Final Countdown." This time a commercial plane flies through a storm and is taken back to an alternate-reality World War II Europe. I say alternate reality because there are some differences between this era's 1940 and what happened in our history. The German Me262 is in full production and engages this commercial 727 in dogfights.

Unlike "Final Countdown" which, to me, has no plot (the aircraft carrier goes back in time, doesn't do anything, and then comes back to the present), this movie does seem to have a plot and the commercial airliner's excursion through time does have an affect.

Anyone else check out this guilty pleasure?

 

[Admiral2]

I prefer ships to planes and military hardware to commercial...so, no, and I probably never will see it.

Final Countdown forever!

 

[marillion]

I watched it. If they had a budget it could have been better. The story, I felt, wasn't any less thin than Final Countdown. Final Countdown had some really good action and acting, which is where Flight 42 suffered.

 

[11Alive]

Unlike "Final Countdown" which, to me, has no plot (the aircraft carrier goes back in time, doesn't do anything, and then comes back to the present), this movie does seem to have a plot and the commercial airliner's excursion through time does have an affect.

It just popped up on my suggestions on YouTube so I watched it. Awful. You must prefer action over logic. It was complete ripoff of Final Countdown, right down to someone onboard who would happen to be an expert on that period, which is not surprising since Asylum specializes in ripoffs. They don't have an original thought in their collective mind. So many problems with this movie. Lots of people have criticized it for its historical inaccuracy, but admirers note they went back to an alternate history where the Nazis were more advanced. Okay, so if it's an alternate history, why is old Nigel on the flight with all his memories intact? Why was Nigel on the flight anyway? He couldn't have known if IA 42 ever made it back safely to the future. He could have been on a suicide flight. If they left behind a 21st century radar, why did they return to a 21st century that doesn't have 75 years of technological advancement beyond that? Heck, they already had surface-to-air missiles in that 1940, whereas in our history, the Nazis barely had unguided rockets by the end of the war. The 1940 Brits were able to cobble together a fully functional radar from some electronics completely different from their vacuum tubes, along with a tablet??? In just a few minutes? And why was that tablet on the galley wall, with no power cord so it would drain its battery during the flight? Did the tablet have some kind of fancy radar app, and how did Nigel suddenly know how to read a radar screen, something never before seen in his profession? Anybody who knows anything about planes knows it's utterly ridiculous that an airliner's or even a fighter jet's weather radar would be able to scan anything but the sector ahead. Only an AWACS or a Hawkeye with their rotating radomes would be able to see to the sides or behind. The co-pilot says he's flown with the captain "a million times." Absurd. Aircrews don't stay together. Their assignments are almost random.

They also missed an opportunity to develop the captain's character a little bit. Instead of "William Strong," they should have let the captain be a Pakistani-American, like the actor who played the role. Captain Khan has a nice ring to it. Nigel refers to Strong as "you Americans" when he should have noticed his British accent. Would have been nice to have Nigel ask if the captain was British, who would have replied that he's Pakistani. He could have told Nigel about the creation of Pakistan and the violent partitioning just a few years later. But then again, there's zero character development in the entire movie, so no surprise they'd miss this. Everybody is two-dimensional. People like Theresa, Hector and the soldiers pop up for a few seconds of glory then disappear for the rest of the movie.

Hard to believe anyone could call this a "treasure."