Airport '77

Despite - or perhaps because of - a stellar cast, this is a really poor disaster movie that marries the original "Airport" film (1970) with aspects of the "Poseidon Adventure" (1972). James Stewart features sparingly as the owner of an airliner packed full of passengers that finds the Bermuda Triangle the least of it's worries as it faces fog - and an hijack! Captained by Jack Lemmon ("Gallagher") who is ably aided by the super-steward "Karen" (Lee Grant), the incredibly spacious aircraft now finds itself under water and somewhat off course. Can they manage to get to surface and alert would be rescuers? What do you think? Sadly, this is all just a bit too preposterous for words. The last half hour sees the likes of Christopher Lee; Olivia de Havilland and Joseph Cotton caught up in a series of mini-melodramas as their lives and foibles are aired for us all to see - and none too interestingly, either. The special effects were clearly filmed in a fish tank (albeit one for big fish); the dialogue is fairly bland and the John Cacavas score tries hard to pick up much of the heavy lifting from a cast that neither gelled nor shone here. Happily, we were coming to the end of this often successful genre now - and certainly the idea had been well flogged to death by the time this appeared. Not awful, indeed watchable if it is raining outside, but sadly for such a glittering array of Hollywood royalty - eminently forgettable!

Gets a little slow in the third act during the scuba rescue part but picks up a bit and finishes well enough. Having now seen three of these, while far from great, I'm a sucker for the Airport movies, as preposterous as they can be at times. **3.0/5**