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Poster (c) Paramount Pictures
For me, Airplane! is one of those movies which you have never heard of until once, and then you see it and it's hilarious. And then you can't stop thinking about it and you see it cop up more places.
Robert Hays plays Ted Striker, a man who has never left his love for Elaine Dickenson (Julie Hagerty). A former pilot, he lost his entire squadron in Macho Grande, and hasn't been near a plane since. So, of course, Elaine is a flight attendant. Ted buys a ticket onto that flight (smoking, of course), and lots of kooky things happen, including food poisoning.
Directors Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker (ZAZ) make many plays on words to make us laugh, such as here between diologue from Dr. Rumack (Leslie Nielsen) to Elaine: "We need to get these people to a hospital" "A hospital? What is it?" "A big building with patients. But that's not important right now." Filled with those kind of jokes, Airplane! cracks you up for 80 minutes.
Hagerty's bubbly personality (Ellen Greene from Little Shop of Horrors, anyone?) and Hays' serious-but-maybe-not-so-serious type makes the characters fun to be around. Lloyd Bridges plays an Air Traffic Controller with every vice possible; Neilsen plays a doctor who happens to be on the flight. Robert Stack is another airport guy, and Peter Graves is the pilot of the plane. Ensamble comedy? No. Many characters aren't in most scenes, just there for comic relief, so to speak. As in a couple other movies, the actors don't think they're in a comedy.
And, of course, how could I write a review of Airplane! without mentioning Otto, the auto-pilot, who may or may not have ulterior motions with Elaine. Laughing is what ZAZ want us to do, and laugh is what we do. I've seen this lots of times and I still crack up. Even though I've used lots of words, it can be summed up in one: hilarious.
Rated PG for language, comic violence, and nudity.
Review Date: October 19, 2002