Directed by Takahi Shimizu, the man who delivered so many great scares in the Ju-On: The Grudge movie series, as well as some other decent films, you could be forgiven for expecting good things from Flight 7500. Those expectations should be drastically lowered when you notice that this is written by Craig Rosenberg, a writer who also delivered The Uninvited (a middling remake of a classic) and The Quiet Ones (which is just terrible). Expectations should then nosedive when you realise that this is based on/inspired by a true story.
A varied bunch of passengers get on a plane, all seated and looked after by Laura Baxter (Leslie Bibb) and Suzy Lee (Jamie Chung). You have a pair of newlyweds, Rick (Jerry Ferrara) and Liz (Nicky Whelan), a moody goth (Scout Taylor-Compton), and Brad (Ryan Kwanten) and Pia (Amy Smart), a couple who have recently broken up, but don't want to ruin a non-refundable holiday for their friends by letting them know. There are others on board, some of them getting a story arc, many of them not, but it's this core group that becomes the focus of the movie.
I hope people don't misunderstand me here when I say that this is genuinely awful. While it is technically decent enough, in terms of the sound work and some general cinematography, it's almost constantly getting enough wrong to ruin any potential scares and/or atmosphere. The geography of the plane, the positioning of characters compared to one another, the confused looks from people as sounds or movements occur just off-camera, it's all very poor. And for a film set on a plane, it rarely feels as if it is actually set on a plane (I am talking about the background noise and little movements that you normally see in plane-set movies, replicating the real experience, they're missing here).
That might not be so bad if the cast was stellar. This is not a stellar cast, and they're sorely mistreated by Rosenberg's weak script. I tend to like Kwanten, but he's rarely managed to get himself movie roles that work well for him (a notable exception being the excellent Red Hill). I tend to dislike Smart, and have rarely seen her in a role that another actress couldn't have done better with, but it's not her fault that this movie decides to give her a few lines of dialogue and then largely act as if she's a background character. Bibb and Chung are treated slightly better, and Whelan is made so smug and lacking in self-awareness that she 's amusing enough, but those are the only people who have some trait that makes them remotely memorable. Even Taylor-Compton, doing standard goth girl schtick, suffers from writing that confuses hair and make-up with actual characterisation.
The ending, which at least comes along soon enough (the runtime is only 80 minutes, approximately), is obviously part of the movie that some felt would make the whole journey worthwhile. It doesn't, and those familiar with the real-life event this is based on may find that it leaves an unpleasant taste. It doesn't justify anything that viewers have just sat through, and it easily ranks as one of the worst horror films from Shimizu, who has so many other greats you can choose from.
2/10
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