It's on thing to be criminally-bad, but it's another thing to actually be criminal! Today's film is Flight of Fury, a pretty innocuous Seagal film...on the surface. The plot involves Seagal as a Secret Agent- naturally- who must recover a stolen Stealth Jet from terrorists who plan to use it for no good. It sounds like nothing bad...until you know the whole story. If you're a bigger nerd than me, you may already know this, so don't SPOIL it for the rest of the class. To find out what this story is (since I'm a giant tease), read on...
Seagal- like in Black Dawn- has to get out prison for his mission. In this one, however, he's locked up for mysterious reasons and escapes.
In some major bullshit, he somehow dodges the cameras and moves from the bottom of the truck to the roof...with nobody noticing.
The plane is stolen after some high-flying action...that appears to be older than most of the graduating class of 2012. Confused?
Seagal makes use of his freedom by breaking up a convenience store robbery, complete with him somehow sliding over a dozen feed on his side. That's how you get Seagal to do action scenes- you let him lay down!
Oh and this cliche scene appears in a dozen action films ranging from Cobra to Best of the Best 4!
Seagal is called in...for some reason to recover the plane. Did I mention that he can fly a fighter jet? Well, he can. Nice shadows too, right?
Call in more military stock footage! Who cares if it looks anything like the quality of the actual film?!?
In a completely random scene , the woman hiding Seagal seduces the female Lieutenant looking for him...for about two minutes. On the plus side, it's shot so darkly that I don't really have to blur it out.
As Seagal swings into action, I think it's time to reveal the big secret...
This is a remake of a film called Black Thunder. It's not listed as such and in fact Seagal has a Co-Writing Credit. Oh and that grainy footage: that's from Thunder.
You know when you're truly a sad sack of an Actor? When the Director is shooting scenes specifically to cover up how you don't do ADR. Kudos!
The finale uses some new CG effects, which totally matches with the stock footage from earlier. On the plus side, Seagal doesn't have to fake fight for the finale. The End.
The real crime is that Seagal is still making movies. In all seriousness, I'm amazed that the folks behind this film didn't get sued. Did the film somehow become Public Domain? Did they own the rights and just not feel like making a new film? Regardless, it's artistic theft and it's pretty damn sad. If you can get past this trespass, the film has some decent moments of action/shooting. That said, there's a lot of weird filler to it. For example, the Convenience Store Scene is just kind of...there. The whole random Lesbian Sub-Plot also comes the hell out of nowhere and amounts to nothing. Further compiling this fact are the constant mistakes and miscues. The CG missiles don't match the 1988 footage, crew are visible in shots and one grenade blows up with the safety pin still in it. Seriously, this is a really easy thing to do right...but they don't. If you like Direct-to-Video schlock, you can enjoy this one. The constant use of 1988 footage makes what would be boring shots of the sky unintentionally-hilarious. Take us away, Director of Black Thunder's only credit here (buried in the Special Thanks To section)...
Next up, a special review of Seagal films in general. Can you blame me for only wanting to watch four in one week? Stay tuned...
In some major bullshit, he somehow dodges the cameras and moves from the bottom of the truck to the roof...with nobody noticing.
Oh and this cliche scene appears in a dozen action films ranging from Cobra to Best of the Best 4!
This is a remake of a film called Black Thunder. It's not listed as such and in fact Seagal has a Co-Writing Credit. Oh and that grainy footage: that's from Thunder.
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