A friend of mine likes to ask me juvenile
questions, even though we are into our forties, like 'Chris,
ever wonder who would win a fight between Batman vs.
Wolverine?' or 'Chris, ever wonder who would a fight between
Godzilla vs. Gamera?' The answer to those questions, and
so many more, or 'No… I never wondered about that', but then
clearly he just failed to asked the real question. The
only question that mattered. The question that nobody
has dared ask. That question being, 'What would win in a
fight between an Airplane and a Volcano'. Finally… we
have an answer.
Somewhere around Hawaii the tectonic lava boiler plates have
interfaced to cause a gigantic magma diffusion temporal
shift. It's a bad thing. Numerous volcanoes have
sprouted up and are erupting like mad and causing
destruction. No worries though, super angry Colonel
Ryker (Mike Jerome Putman) is yelling at people and shouting
out orders and doing absolutely nothing to solve this
problem. Fortunately for us, the ancient but still crazy
hot volcanologist Dr. Lisa Whitmore (Robin Givens) is on the
scene because she's the best there is and he needs her
there. Or at least that's what she told the
Colonel. She doesn't really do much of anything either,
at least until the end.
The airplane, however, is the issue. The pilots probably
could've flown around it, but magma disturbances fried their
instruments and now they are smack square in the middle of
these islands of volcanos and it is not looking good.
It's looking worse because both pilots, somehow, got
themselves killed. Hell if I know how that
happened. Good thing that we have the skilled but
emotionally damaged pilot Rick Pierce (Dean Cain) in the
cabin, and he's going fly us into safety. Or at least he
would if the plane wasn't locked on autopilot, needing codes
to unlock it, known only by the pilots, who are dead. As
such, the autopilot is now programmed to fly in circles within
these erupting volcanos. Dumbest autopilot ever.
Rich has just enough control over this mega sized plane to
duck and dodge volcanic meteorites.
The challenge is to keep our First Class
passengers calm, because at no point do we ever travel behind
that blue curtain to check on Coach. The discount
ticket passengers in this movie are totally dead.
Fortunately, there are some really colorful people in First
Class to keep us entertained, such as hardcore Air Marshall
Jim Kirkland, as played by the legendary Lawrence
Hilton-Jacobs, who says all kinds of sweet, somewhat creepy
things to this little white kid to keep him calm. Then
there's Rita (Tamara Goodwin), the air waitress with the
large, full, forever glistening lips, there's also Landon
(Matt Mercer) who by chance happens to be a volcano expert and
will be our exposition guy, and we need a Freak Out Guy which
will be provided by Mr. Crieger (David Vega) who we knew
already was trouble because he seems to be of Middle Eastern
descent. That's not me profiling this cat, but the film
directors the Kondelik Brothers who have profiled this
clown. But despite all these colorful people, none
are probably more important the Frank the Handyman (Anthony
Marks) who performs a feat so stupefyingly stupid that he's my
new personal hero and the wallpaper on my cellphone.
Back on the ground we need a solution to get these people
safe, or rather hard working Specialist Tully (Morgan West)
needs a solution because the Colonel doesn't want to sacrifice
his men, or anything. Thus it's up to Specialist Tully
to sacrifice his men for him. At the end of this movie
the powers that be congratulate Spec. Tully, when in all
honesty he should be carted off to the nearest firing
squad. Seriously.
Anyway, despite all the best efforts, the Airplane is getting
its ass kicked by the Volcano, people are dying left and
right, but that super smart volcanologist we mentioned earlier
has a plan. That includes shooting rockets at the
volcano, which I could've thought of and I have no volcanology
degree, but then I also would've kept my jacket on throughout
the entire film where Dr. Lisa took hers off halfway, wearing
a way too tight tank top and distracted us from the fact that
she's not much of volcanologist. Its round fifteen in
this epic fight, but the airplane is about to Rocky Balboa on
that Volcano behind.
A couple of years back the Asylum dropped 'Air Collision' on
us and I declared that compendium of total nonsense the best
film they've ever released. Is it possible that they've
captured lightning in a bottle twice with 'Airplane vs.
Volcano? Not quite, but almost. Like that film,
this film is batshit insane, it grips to no form of reality on
any planet that I'm aware of, characters sacrifice themselves
so often that I was beginning to think this movie was part
Pagan Ritual, the cast is acting in this film as if they were
reenacting 'Hamlet', and it moves like one of those flaming
volcanic meteorites is bearing down on its ass. For the
most part. It's that 'most part' that keeps it below
'Air Collision' with that 'Most Part' representing oppressive
melodrama. Lots and lots of speeches about dead love
ones, missing people, about helpless kids, dying
speeches, angry dude speeches… melodrama, the mortal
enemy of the bad disaster movie.
But at least there is a lot of fantastic, unrealistic insanity
to somewhat equalize most of this melodrama. Jumbo jets
that dodge meteorites? Or my man who space walked on the
side of the plane to do something complete dumb, just to die a
glorious death? Or the Air Marshall's awesome plan to
save everybody which included parachuting out of a moving
plane, attached to an inflatable raft into volcanic waters…
with the amazing thing being that I think the plan might've
worked. Or that the cabin that never depressurized no
matter how many times they opened a door or a cargo
hold. And I haven't seen overacting this intense since I
saw the local Community Theater's rendition of 'Death of a
Salesman'.
True, 'Airplane vs. Volcano' is no 'Air Collision'… I mean
what is? Right? But every couple of years The
Asylum gives us something which gives us justification as to
why we watch all of their awful movies, and today this
biennial event calls itself 'Airplane vs. Volcano'.
