The tense and most exciting parts of any plane ride are the take-off and the landing. And so it is with Flight of the Phoenix, it starts with a bang and ends on a high note but the flight itself just isn't as exhilarating.

The remake of the 1965 film (based on a novel by Elleston Trevor) stars Dennis Quaid as Frank Towns, a pilot assigned to fly to Mongolia to bring back an oil rigging crew. On the way back, Quaid attempts to fly over and then around a huge sandstorm and ends up crashing 200 miles off course in the Gobi desert. Stranded, with little hope of being rescued, one of the passengers, Elliot (Giovanni Ribisi) announces that he designs airplanes for a living and he believes that they can design a smaller plane from the wreckage. Reluctant at first, Towns and the crew realize that this outlandish plan might actually work.

One thing that the 2004 version can do that the 1965 version couldn't is pile on the special effects. The plane crash is tense and scary and realistic and could never have been accomplished 40 years ago. The sandstorms and electrical storms that come out of nowhere are equally impressive. 

What I wasn't impressed with was the script. Clichéd and hokey, I actually cringed at several of the lines. While Dennis Quaid gave a solid performance as the well-worn captain, the script didn't give him much to do. For example, if you want to get technical about it, the crash was his fault. His co-pilot A.J. (Tyrese Gibson) suggested that they turn back and so did Elliot but it was Towns arrogance that convinced him that he should press on. Yet, he doesn't have one scene where he really comes to terms with the fact that he caused the accident.  There is also the presence of mysterious nomads. We think they are there to steal but we never know for sure what their purpose is.

Ribisi (Saving Private Ryan, Boiler Room, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Cold Mountain) can almost always be counted on to give a good performance. He delivers the film's most interesting performance as the brilliant yet immature and insecure Elliott. Unfortunately, he's the only character that is really developed. Every other character is just part of the crew: the woman in a man's world (Miranda Otto), the sidekick (Tyrese Gibson), the smart guy (Kevork Malikyan), the quasi-religious guy (Jacob Vargas), the family guy (Scott Michael Campbell), the corporate suit (Hugh Laurie), the tough guy (Sticky Fingaz). They all play their ensemble roles well but there are no real surprises.