Reviews of Airplane (1980) and related work
- Sequel: Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)
Airplane (1980
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Airplane is a parody of a simple disaster film, namely Zero Hour (1957), but it is not a simple parody. Airplane was made with non-comedic actors, keeping a straight face as they were both trained and instructed to do. The comedy is in the writing, the pacing, the staging, and the relationship with an entire genre, that is, with expectations that are not specific to the primary text. The comedy is not in the acting, and actually having seen Zero Hour will not make Airplane more entertaining. It’s better to see star Leslie Nielsen in The Poseidon Adventure (1972).
References here: Creepshow (1982), Snakes on a Plane (2006), Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022).