Mike LeMar Because this uncovered base leaves the wonderment of how the hijackers got past security in the first place, I had to mark this movie down significantly. It's explained to the First Lady that an authorized group to board the plane was ambushed by these radicals on their way to the plane. The First Lady says, "Tell me it's not that easy." She gets the response that it's not and a bunch of processes are listed to her, such as creating IDs. We're never explained how the radicals did all that; were just shown Gary Oldman placing his thumb on the laptop screen with it then popping up a matching picture of him as a "Welcome aboard" confirmation.

mudderfukker One of the 'greatest' unintended comedies of all time. Holy Jheezhus! Not to be taken seriously. As Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman are my two favs actors, I expected a good movie, if not trite 'action' fare, but man o man, it is ridiculous. 1970's era special effects, terribly obvious green screens, stunts that violate the laws of physics....Should have been sponsored by Velveeta, the cheese factor is off the scale... from caricature bad guys to control panel display messages for the visually impaired, to the corny as hell 'narrative' radio messages, it is just a huge farce from beginning to end... lols-a-plenty for all!. Leslie Neilson would have been proud.

jimbo-53-186511 Following a 'zero tolerance' speech, President James Marshall (Harrison Ford) boards Air Force One with his family and security team. However, a group of terrorists led by Ivor Korshunov (Gary Oldman) manage to gain access to Air Force One under the guise of being a group of news reporters. Shortly after the plane takes off the terrorists reveal themselves and threaten to kill one hostage every 30 minutes unless their general is released from prison. The terrorists believe that the President has escaped from the plane in his pod, but Marshall is still on board the plane and is determined to stop the terrorists.My gut instinct was telling me that Air Force One was going to be one of those films that was ridiculous, but very entertaining. To its credit that is exactly what it is so in some ways I feel like I'm being a little bit harsh criticising it. However, in order to properly evaluate the film I'll give you some examples of some of the issues that I had with this film....Air Force One is definitely a film that requires lots of suspension of disbelief. The scene where a missile hits the back of Air Force One and puts a nice little circular hole in it was particularly unrealistic - considering missiles are used to shoot planes down you would have expected there to be more damage to the plane than what is show here. In the real world, I'm almost certain this would have caused the plane to crash. However, not only does this not cause Air Force One to crash, but a hit at the back also fails to damage the rear ramp and tail fin and the plane is also able to maintain the same course as a result of a hit from a missile??? Come on!!!! There is an additional continuity error later in the film where you can see that there is no hole or damage to the rear of the plane after the missile has hit, unless Air Force One is capable of repairing itself mid-flight.I got the impression that director Wolfgang Peterson was hoping that the fast-paced action and the frantic set-pieces would cover up any of these mistakes, but anyone paying any sort of attention will see these examples of incompetency. The CGI crash-landing at the end was beyond embarrassing - I'm pretty sure a plane wouldn't cartwheel after hitting the ocean??? Some of the plot elements themselves are also a little far-fetched; we learn that terrorists have managed to get a load of weapons on board Air Force One and we learn that someone has helped them, but even with someone helping the terrorists I still found it hard to comprehend how all the weaponry was moved on to the plane without anyone noticing?? it's an issue that's addressed in the film, but one that is never really clarified.The political angle employed in Air Force One made it quite an interesting film. I got the impression that the writers were trying to give the film some depth so that it doesn't appear to be just another dumb action film. That's all well and good, but the politics in Air Force One are a tad heavy-handed - how many times do we have to hear 'America does NOT negotiate with terrorists'. Rather than merely making this point, it felt like this point was being bashed round my head.I've given Air Force One a lot of stick, but to its credit it is very entertaining and I must admit 2 hours passed by very quickly. Peterson directs the film with a sense of urgency and the film does have quite a claustrophobic feel to it. I also liked the cat and mouse antics that are employed throughout the film. The writers also paint the President as a Vietnam war hero medal of honour and all so it's very easy to get behind him and when watching it you do hope that he will save the day which inevitably he does. Air Force One is definitely worth watching as it is very entertaining and for the most part it moves along at a fair old lick - although the final 30 minutes are a little drawn out. If you switch your brain off and just go along for the ride then there is plenty to enjoy here.

juneebuggy Throughout watching this movie I kept waffling between "this is a piece of crap, I've got to shut it off" and "this is freaking awesome!" So I sat through the whole thing.Yes, Air Force One has its moments of utter cheese but then there are also some surprisingly intense action scenes which mostly involved the actual plane, Air Force One or mid air refuelling or parachuting or fighter jets or Gary Oldman executing someone or Harrison Ford kicking ass.There's also some decent acting; Glen Close is really good as the Vice president as is William H Macy in what must have been an early role for him. Even Ford surprised me here with a couple of poignant scenes.The moments of flag waving patriotism and the ultimate "get off my plane" line upped the cheese factor but I have to admit in a fun way. 8/10/13