Collision Course (2012)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Good movie but grossly overrated

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

COLLISION COURSE is another cookie cutter disaster/thriller movie from Fred Olen Ray. I noticed that Jason Bourque, the man responsible for directing such movies as ASTEROID: FINAL IMPACT and DOOMSDAY PROPHECY, helped to write the script. Unsurprisingly, this is the sort of film shown on the SyFy Channel, a safe, bland, and extremely derivative type of movie that copies pretty much every plane thriller in existence.The story is about solar flares and the havoc they're wreaking here on Earth. Some people are trapped on an out-of-control passenger plane when the pilot is killed by a flare and the co-pilot is knocked out cold. The only person with the power to save the passengers and crew is a writer who knows a thing or two about flying planes.It's amazing that a film with a potentially exciting premise like COLLISION COURSE can be so dull. Fred Olen Ray is up to his old tricks here, incorporating stock footage of expensive stuff (i.e. explosions) from other movies and generally fumbling the non-existent suspense. An ageing Tia Carrera is the best actor they can come up with and her acting is very poor.

'Collision Course' tells the story of a plane which is hit by an EMP due to a solar flare. The pilot is killed, the co-pilot injured and the electronic systems including the auto-pilot are badly damaged. Kate Parks (Tia Carrere) is a passenger on board; she was married to a pilot and wrote a book about airplanes, so at least she knows a little bit more about flying than the other passengers. Jake Ross (David Chokachi, whom I remember from 'Witchblade') is happy about any help he can get from her, because another plane is, as the title mentions, on a collision course...The characters get some background story, since somehow between one emergency and the next, they find time to think about personal trouble with their family members. 'Collision Course' certainly doesn't win any prizes for innovation, but it's OK. I voted 6 of 10.

I gave "Collision Course" a two because it's awful good seeing such a bad movie every once in a while. But this movie wasn't quite bad enough to earn a cult following mainly because of the lead role played by the dog.Besides another SyFy "original", what do you get when melodrama, cliché dialog, poor direction, bad science and poor acting collide? Collision Course movie disaster apocalypse...the only thing missing is turning the pilot into a zombie which I substituted in my wandering imagination for the evil dog Bootsie...that turned out to be a good doggie after all. Professional acting on the part of Bootsie was refreshing but his German accent needs some work. Even Asylum's Sharknado was destined to miss the cult mark as some of the acting was too good, and although Sharknado science was bad enough to earn a shock and awe score Asylum is still having trouble hitting the cult mark.Somehow the Collision Course writers missed the low standard mark in writing worst Airplane disaster disaster ever, which is still held by "Starflight: The Plane that Couldn't Land (1983)" which starred Lee Majors. Perhaps the writers of Collision Course shamelessly turned to Mel Brooks for inspiration, afraid of direct ties to other air disaster disaster movies staring John Wayne and Charlton Heston. I must admit the natural and instinctual reaction to take charge and discuss personal histories with strangers when the autopilot fails is well developed. Although the protagonist was married to a pilot at one time is convenient, I think she would have better flying credentials had she stayed at a Holiday Inn.Although ScyFy may yet someday achieve the apparent goal of productions that merit true cult status for being awful, they need to study Troll:II. "Collision Course" only earns an "of course" in the predictable bad science "deus ex machina" department. Still you may be able to scratch your head and smile at the bravado of writers who sell for mass consumption to a market that actually believes in ghosts, ancient aliens and UFO's. I won't spoil the end which will come as a real surprise, although I would have ended the drama at the first mid-air collision and simply rolled credits, leaving room for a Part Deux.There is hope for this movie. No future species that decodes the remnants of this movie on a Venus like planet will wonder why our species became extinct. Therefore this title rates as candidate for sharing on a "Bad Movie" or "Disaster Disaster" movie night with some friends or a cat who can fill in the awkward dialog.

Collision Course may not quite be bad enough to be on a personal worst movies ever list or the very worst movie to air on the SyFy Channel(any contenders for that title make for a very large number). That is saying next to nothing though, because it still has everything bad about melodrama/disaster movies at their worst. To search for a redeeming quality you'd have to look very hard, but for anything that came across as least bad about Collision Course it was Dee Wallace who does try to give some compassion to material that was beneath her. Generally in regard to the acting Collision Course is a very poorly-acted film, with the actors ranging from overwrought emotion(Tia Carrere applies here) to no emotion or acting skills at all. The acting is not the only bad thing, everything about Collision Course is bad. The drab look of the movie is very unappealing, and further disadvantaged by about 20 years out of date special effects that show no signs texture, shading or proportion and simplistic camera work. The dialogue gives meaning to the term banal and practically insults it too and gets increasingly turgid and predictable. The story shows no tension, fear of characters' predicaments or heart, and instead consists of very questionable science/maths, pedestrian pacing and ham-fisted melodrama. The characters are also the sort that we never care for or know anything about, that they're written in such a cardboard fashion and acted lazily doesn't help. Overall, there's worse out there- you'll agree or disagree here- but Collision Course at the end of the day was very difficult to endure. 1/10 Bethany Cox