The Concorde... Airport '79 (1979)

Undescribable Perfection

Truly Dreadful Film

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This is the weakest of the four ''Airport'' movies, and thank God they ended with this. Yet the many negative reviews and the rating didn't stopped me for watching it till the end. And I hate the bad movies with only good actors to publicize it!Exactly, the cast is the only good thing you can find in this movie (if you didn't saw it), and I also liked the actors' previous work.French sex-simbol Alain Delon and Airport veteran George Kennedy are the pilots of the Concorde, along with David Warner as their co-pilot. Susan Blakely stars as a journalist that tries to uncover the actions of a petrol company directed by Robert Wagner (who also send a hitman at the beginning of the movie, who miserably fails). Eddie Albert stars as a famous womanizer with a much younger wife at his side, and Jimmie Walker as a religious sax-player.The story is full of many bad jokes, and one follows one another like lemmings, and I found very stupid and awkward the ending, with the Concorde landing in the snow and with Kennedy that says ''If they find this plane they can make it work, snow or no snow''. I wanted to throw up on the TV screen. And that says all.I recommend this only to fans of really bad movies, with immature humour and non-sensical lines!

This is a real disaster. I mean, the whole flick is boring and the effects with the Concorde are ridiculous. There isn't that much that I can say except if you are going to watch it be prepared to have a big laugh.And still people are loving this flick. The effects done with the drone are stupid , it's being keyed and you just can see that it was a key. The Concorde looping on mach 2 or doing other stunts is just laughable.And if you think the first disaster was it be prepared for the second crash. Trying to land in the snow, really...If you do like the Concordde then it's worth seeing for watching take-off and shots made in the air.Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 1/5 Story 1/5 Comedy 2/5 (not intended)

All the entries in the 70's disaster movie franchise "Airport" – a total of four movies spread over one decade – have been chastised by critics as well as regular action movie fanatics for being too grotesque and ludicrous. Me, personally, I liked the three previous installments a lot, but I can't but admit that the swan song in the series is a completely laughable effort. The supposedly adrenalin-rushing script is absurd, the stereotypical characters are cartoonish, the acting performances are wooden and the action sequences are downright hilarious. The set-up and plot of "The Concorde" is faithful to the previous movies. We have a cast full of acclaimed names, often in inferior little roles, and a screenplay that brings together pretty much everything that can go wrong on an intercontinental flight. The prestigious Concorde aircraft is ready to fly from New York to Paris and then onwards towards Moscow in celebration of the 1980 Olympics. One of the passengers is the female journalist Maggie Whelan, who's in possession of some important evidence that will unmask her ex-fiancée Kevin Harrison as an illegal weapon dealer. It's most vital for him that Maggie never reaches Moscow and thus he tries to kill her, as well as the rest of the Concorde passengers and crew, subsequently through nuclear missiles and sabotage. Luckily for the passengers, the Concorde has two of the world's biggest macho men behind the steering wheel with the French Captain Paul Metrand and the American veteran pilot Joe Patroni. "The Concorde: Airport 79" is a dumb and fairly pathetic film, but fortunately enough it remains amusing and never bores for one second. The sight of an hi-tech advanced airplane making loops in order to evade missiles is definitely bad in an entertaining way and the hammy performances of A-list stars are fun to observe as well. Particularly Robert Wagner is tremendous as the villain. With his straight face and eloquent monologues, he represents the prototype of Bond-movie villains and I strongly suspect that Mike Myers hired him to play Number Two in the Austin Powers' movie solely based on his performance here. Alain Delon looks quite bored and soft-erotica star Sylvia "Emmanuelle" Kristel is rather unnoticeable when she keeps her clothes on. Fun bloke George Kennedy is the only actor who appeared in all four of the "Airport" movies, so it's truly a shame that he plays his biggest role in the worst of the series. The dialogs are lame and some of the clichéd sub plots are horrendous (does there really have to be an emergency donor organ transport in every disaster movie?), but I certainly didn't regret the two hours of my life that I wasted on watching this film.

I remember walking out of an Australian movie theatre in 1980 and saying to my brother..."That was a disaster movie but what was the disaster?". Granted, I was a child at the time.This Airport movie is different to the other three, no big sea dive or big collision, Airport '79 just seemed to be all over the place! However, the film has improved with age and two recent viewings have been very much enjoyed. It has a touch of The Towering Inferno (1974) with Robert Wagner still being up to no good, the miniature effects work of the Concorde itself is pleasing to my eyes and the film starts with a very uplifting Lalo Schifrin theme tune.Perhaps Schifrin was trying to be the new disaster movie composer as in 1980 he would score Irwin Allen's When Time Ran Out as well.There was to be a 5th Airport movie but the poor box office takings for Airport '79 put an end to all that. Too bad as all four Airport films are a special part of the 1970s and still survive repeat viewings to this day.