A Bumpy Flight Through Alternate History
Sometimes a movie doesn’t have a massive budget or jaw-dropping special effects, yet still manages to be entertaining. Flight WW II falls squarely into that category.
Obviously the taglines on the movie poster conflict. True events. Um, maybe. I guess they mean the fact that WW II happened. I doubt they mean the airliner from the future appearing in WW II. Then the The Greatest Battle that Never Happened. Hm.
The premise is simple but fun: a commercial airliner gets sucked into a vortex and ends up in another time. From there, the passengers and crew find themselves caught up in history. I was going to avoid a spoiler by not mentioning which event, but, well, it’s in the title.
The acting is actually quite good. It never felt stiff or robotic. You know when you can see actors trying to act? Thankfully, there wasn’t much of that. The performances helped carry the story and added some genuine suspense as the situation escalated.
Things get interesting when the events don’t quite match up with what we know about history. Ah, an alternate timeline. I think something the plane does (avoiding a spoiler) seems to push events back toward the history we know… maybe. That part is a little fuzzy, and the movie never fully explains it.
This is definitely one of those films you shouldn’t think too hard about. If you start pulling on the logic threads, the whole thing unravels, and that spoils the fun.
That said, the movie sparked my curiosity about WWII aircraft, so I ended up looking up some information afterward and learning a few things. Any movie that sends me down a mini research rabbit hole gets a little extra credit.
Because of that, I’m upgrading the rating from 2.5 beers to 2 beers. Two beers would definitely make it better. It’s not a great film, but it’s far from terrible. It’s entertaining enough if you go in with the right expectations. It was made by the Asylum, the same brilliant folks that made Sharknado (one of my favs).
The ending, though… they were clearly trying to be clever. Instead, it left me with a lot of questions. If you watch it, let me know how you interpret the ending.
You can currently watch Flight WW II for free on YouTube. WATCH
