Someone spoil it for me.
I doubt I'll get to it in theaters, but I wanna know the secrets. I've actually read a review that supposedly spoils the whole thing, and if it was true, I have to say it's easily the worst film ever made (but this review was convincing, yknow?). Soo...spoil away.

btw, how big is Sarsgaard's role?

Sarsgaard = #2 actor in movie. He's got a big role.

I sorta spoiled it in the thread in the cinemania forum.

I saw this last night. I didn't care for it at all. I think the pacing was off in the first half, and the buildup wasn't really that effective. The second half just wasn't very entertaining, and the ending wasn't satisfying. I didn't even think Jodie Foster was as good as usual. Very disappointing.

D+

filled of flaws, but in the end very good (ok third act)

B

You've graded it three times. You like it that much, huh?

After thinking about it, I lower my grade to a B-. It's a fun, well-acted ride, and I can't help but love it. However, it just doesn't deserve to be scored any higher.

B-.

The buildup in the first half is effective, but the development of last 30 minutes made me say "huh, that's it?" The story could've been taken into so many directions, and they choose the most convenient and lame one. Jodie Foster was great, but Peter Sarsgaard was very one-noted and given very little to work with.

After reading some of the hate / dislike for this movie - wanted to see how the grades were.

I gave it a B.

What grade would you give this film?

A 41% ( 5 )
B 41% ( 5 )
C 16% ( 2 )
D 0% ( 0 )
F 0% ( 0 )

Total Votes: 12.

***********************************

Anyway, I do not understand the hate for the ending; in how many directions could it have gone.

- Something magical, alien - like the Forgotten
- She was crazy
- Her husband did it
- Someone on the plane did it

Therefore, it turned out to be someone on the plane - which is the usual answer - that it was someone human wanting something. Look at Red Eye, Die Hard or many other movies - how do they end > bad guy wanting money, good eye beating up bad guy in a bad fight.

Now even if you thought it was someone on the plane, was it the captain, air marshal or crew. The reason that I stayed interested was that it had to be a combination based on the number of things that had to happen and where was the girl.
Personally, I did not think the ending was too bad.

*******************

The only big thing that was unreasonable was that they had a solid plan but how did they ever think that no one would ever see them taking the girl > but in all movies, you give them things like that.

SPOILER ALERT




Two things about the ending that I have the most problem with:

1. The motive. They picked her and killed her husband a week in advance just for money? And they picked her because they knew she would be emotionally unstable after her husband's death and could trigger the whole outburst once they kidnapped her daughter? Why are they so sure? And when they killed her husband, how they knew she would be taking that exact plane, the plane the marshall is on, home? I guess the last question can be explained by the fact that the same flight is set each day between the two destinations, so she will get on this plane regardless the date. I just feel the whole hijacking plan is too elaborated for some really small purpose. Even just asking for more money, in the hundred million range, will make it more believable. I don't want some aliens or anything, but the whole conspiracy should have served for a bigger climax.

2. From the first possible moment, that one bad crew member was behaving differently. The audience was given every clue that she is suspicious, and in the end, she is the one. You build the suspect(s) up so that you could overturn it and do the surprise at the end, not confirm it.

Some good points. It's hard to believe that they could have predicted that Jodie Foster would automatically go to America with her husband's dead body a week in advance, unless I missed something important. As for predicting the outburst, I'm guessing they studied her for a while and might have noticed that she has panic attacks everytime her daughter isn't near her (like in the airport, when she walked away for a second). I think the air marshall and attendent put themselves onto that plane rather than the other way around, considering they did have access to take Kyla's name off the list.



Yeah, even though I knew a hijacker/terrorist would be involved in a plot, they made it wayyyyy too easy to guess. The pure fact that she was the only flight attendent to actually argue with Jodie (not Flight attendent-like conduct, heh) and that she was the one to check in all the hot spots for hiding a child, it was a dead give away.

Personally, I didn't know which attendant it was. I thought she was doing the most talking because she was the head attendant - it could have been Erika C very easily. and also is addition to the air marshall, the captain could have been involved.

But to me the end result was that I was held for 80 % of the movie wondering about the girl and what happened to her.

Good, not great, enough for me.

Exactly. Warrents a B from me.

Flightplan was a good thriller. the story was predictable, but Jodie Foster performance was still as Fantastic as three years ago with her Panic Room. she did well on Flightplan. Sean Bean, Peter Saarsgard also plays good. overall it's an enjoyable movie. i grade it B+

FLIGHTPLAN - 6/10 (C+)

This was REALLY disappointing. I was expecting a taut and exciting thriller with great performances and instead I got something completely different. Jodie Foster portrays one of the most annoying characters of the year so far and the whole film she's basically running up and down the aisles screaming "Where's Julia?!?!" :rolleyes: It got so damn repetitive by the end that I couldn't have cared less about her. In addition, her character was a bitch and really inconsiderate of others :p It was also really obvious who the person behind it all was from the very beginning. Anyways, I was never bored and was mildly entertained by laughing at the film's many implausible situations. But this is easily one of the biggest disappointments of the year so far. RED EYE was so fantastic and had such awesome characters and a better storyline, and this is basically a lamer version of that film and THE FORGOTTEN. See RED EYE instead

Never expected this to be that bad. Why did Jodie chose this movie for her comeback? The story is on the B-Movie level. Sean Bean was heavily underused. The first hour wasn't as bad as the last half hour but still not too strong. Flightplan is not in one moment better than Panic Room. D

Woohoo! Jodie Foster is working again. What seemed like a life time ago since Panic Room, Foster has decided to grace our screens once again. Flightplan could be described as Panic Room 2 or a remake of last year’s clunky thriller, The Forgotten. While this is a good film (& pay day) for Foster, it seems like everyone else who worked on this film is a complete idiot.

Jodie Foster plays a grieving wife, Kyle Pratt, who has just lost her husband. She decides to go back home to America, from Berlin with her disturbing daughter Julia, to bury the body. After take off, Kyle dozes off in the back row. When she awakes, her daughter is mysteriously missing. What makes it worse is that the crew and the passengers never saw Julia on the plane in the first place. Is Julia alive? Has a pedophile got her? Did the Middle Eastern passenger kidnap her? Is Kyle delusional? Why is the crew acting weird?

If you think plot holes are a pretentious tool for critics to slag off a movie, Flightplan will change your mind. Foster says she was drawn to the role because it’s about a mother’s love for her daughter. Who are you kidding Jodie? Reese Witherspoon was originally attached and the film was originally written for a male actor. Not only that, but once the twist is revealed it seems like she has been taken down with it. Add to that, 420 retarded extras. Surely that $20m cheque was more enticing. But you have to hand it to Jodie; she is able to rise above the situation and gives this film some sort of grounding. Because it seems everyone around her are bunches or morons. Peter Saarsgard should be lucky he still finds work in Hollywood, even he must no that. Sean Bean is a piece of wood. Erika Christensen should also be lucky. Aussie up-and-comer Kate Beahan is given an inept character more designed for daytime television. Hopefully her character in Sarah Michelle Gellar’s latest supernatural thriller, The Return, isn’t marred by a retarded screenwriter. Looking For Alibrandi star, Greta Scacchi, pops her head in to remind Kyle she isn’t a nut case, but ultimately her character is just a time-filler.

I cannot stress how important Foster is to this lazy film. I mean for the first 70 minutes, she had me entertained. But from then on it’s like watching Osama Bin Laden claim he’s Chinese. A lot of the problems are due from the duo Peter A. Dowling and Billy Ray’s script. Seriously, there are some quite awful attempts at humour, it has to be seen to be believed. Robert Schwentke’s direction is also very inconsistent. Ultimately, it’s best to view Flightplan with an open mind because at least you will arrive at your destination without too many complaints.

C-

***Yeah, there's spoilers.***

An incredibly disappointing film from start to finish. Nothing from this film stands out at all that makes it remotely interesting. The first twenty minutes are boring, once Julia disappears, the film just aimlessly wanders around for a LARGE portion of the running time. Not once are we lead to believe that Julia didn't exist/is dead, because there's no reason to reveal it after 20 or 25 minutes. It would render the rest of the film useless. The worst part is that I ended up wanting her to never exist/be dead.

Jodie Foster is unlikable in the film during her little fits. From being whiny to blaming the poor Arab guy, she does nothing to make me root for her. I know, she lost her kid, she's supposed to be looking EVERYWHERE for her. But I don't care. She doesn't make me care. The villain was obvious from the start. There wasn't anyone else it really could have been.

Ugh. The film also contains the longest and most irritating applause I have ever heard in my life from the people on the plane as Jodie Foster is escorted back to her seat after disrupting the entire plane for the 50th time. If Jodie was supposed to be so unstable in the movie, why didn't she start screaming at everyone for clapping? I would've been kicking at a few of them. Why not? She was already in enough trouble.

My last complaints are two incredibly dumb lines. "It's not like she lost her palm pilot! *giggle chuckle*" and when her daughter wakes up and says "Are we there yet?" like we're supposed to go "Aww... she doesn't even know that she might have died on the plane! So cute." A little humor was the last thing this film needed.

I just can't even really find anything good about this film. If I have to dig for something, it would be the seven or eight minutes where the bad guy is chasing her through the plane near the end. But it's been done to death. And it's been done in movies that are far better! If you want a recent flick that does a far better job, see "Red Eye". It also takes place on a plane for much of the running time, but here's the good part: it doesn't suck.

Grade: D

Goodness. The film seems to have all the right ingredients, and it creates such a wonderfully sombre atmosphere.


And then...the ending. URGH!


How unforgivably weak and predictable. It makes no sense to me why the filmmakers would want to throw everything out the window after building it up so nicely. I found Foster to be, as usual, very strong, to the point were I believed that she was sincere and sincerely mad. At the same time, the airplane crew's behaviour seemed suspicious as well, so that it keeps you guessing as to what the real deal is. I'm not surprised that there was a twist, only that it was so awful.

I wonder how the film would have turned out if the woman really did make everything up. In think the film would have been much more effective, as an extreme form of the paranoia that seems to be associated with flying in the post-9/11 world. Sure, the film addresses that, but its point at the end seems to be that, yes, one is right to be paranoid, only terrorists and kidnappers don't have to look like Arabs. It could be everybody and anybody. In fact, the very people in whose hands you are, the flight crew, should be under suspicion. So, basically, be even more afraid?

A very unfortunate ending that makes the experience overall not nearly as rewarding as the first part.

Its one redeeming future is the atmosphere, the feeling it creates. It's dark and moody and weirdly futuristic. Maybe because I'm a sucker for this type of stuff, but I dug it.


D

It was good, well it did its job of entertaining me...so.

the ending was kinda lame though and very predictible. There were other things i didnt like very much, but meh!

B-

BTW this thread its not listed on the "Thread for all movies" thread.

I have to say...

I was entertained all the way through.

No sarcasm? You really liked it?

...

surprising.

Really.

Why, oh why would ANYONE come up with such an improbable, almost impossible and insanely elaborated plan to get to $50 million?! I agree with xiayun on that.

Oh and, andaroo, did you recognize an actor from Downfall in Flightplan?

I thought it did its job. It isn't insanely memorable.

I agree with this too, but most of you went nuts over Red Eye which has an equally if not MORE ridiculous plan baked into it.

Flightplan had great cinematography and that set is really, really nice.

And it has Sean Bean.

Liking Flightplan is weird. Loving Red Eye but blasting Flightplan is also weird.

Better to be safe and just dismiss them both.

I thought Red Eye was tripe compared to Flightplan. Must have been Teh Jodie vs. the cheapness of Red Eye.