Altitude

Sara's mother died piloting her small plane. New pilot Sara (Jessica Lowndes) is flying her boyfriend Bruce Parker (Landon Liboiron), her cousin Cory (Ryan Donowho), her best friend Mel (Julianna Guill) and Mel's boyfriend Sal (Jake Weary) to a Coldplay concert. A mechanical malfunction sends them climbing. It's terrifying to fix the problem but then something truly supernatural happens.

This is somewhat like a Twilight Zone episode. I say this as a compliment but it also means that it's a hour-long story at best. Firstly, Sal is too annoying. It seems to be an often used trope but not one that I particularly like. It would help if one character is actually funny and likable. These are photogenic young actors playing uncompelling characters. What starts out as a tight little thriller turns into a hodgepodge of supernatural messiness. I like the confined space of the aircraft but the movie has problems.

Several things motivated me to see this film, not the least of which is that I've spent quite a number of hours flying about in small private planes, so I was intrigued to see how Hollywood would portray this. Another motivation was to see Jessica Lowndes do her character thing as a pilot, and also the surprisingly well done acting on the part of Jake Weary, who plays the part of the quintessential loud mouth, hyper emotional, annoying beer guzzling jerk character.

As the plot unfolds into the film, however, the whole story suddenly takes a completely bizarre left turn, which theoretically could have been an interesting "outside the box" twist, maybe . . . but here, it just came off as being weird and silly.

It's kind of sad, actually, in that the seeds of a potentially good film were firmly planted in the first half, but then it just sagged into an absurd side track which basically ruined the whole viewing experience, which by then seemed like a complete waste of time.

However, at the very end of the film, as in just the last couple of moments, the story does suddenly present a very compelling and thought provoking ending, so I'll give the writers some credit where it's due.

Sorry to say, this film is in the 5 - 6 category, and that's being generous, but the acting was well done, so I don't want to tarnish their efforts by being stuck with a flimsy, clumsily thrown together screenplay and script.

There have been many films, TV episodes which have taken place within a confined area, and the tension can become excruciating.

Lifeboat, Midnight (Doctor Who), are just a couple.

Altitude - the story of a half dozen teens trapped in a little plane - is NOT one.

The director who made this - Kaare Andrews - has made a 'teen' horror film that doesn't try hard to be any better than of the films it desperately rips off - the FINAL DESTINATION films, are just one franchise, which comes to mind.

The 'acting' horrendous. The 'plot?' Cheesecloth holds together better.

The 'technical' dialogue, spouted by 'pilot' Ms. Loundes, is akin to hearing a monkey explain quantum mechanics - and, just as believable.

This is one of those films, in which the 'director' seems SO hard to demonstrate his skills, and, has none, to begin with.

Bluish-green tinted movie? Seen it. Actors' eyes (annoyingly) colorized? Yawn - ENOUGH!

I kept praying this nightmare would end - and, by that, I mean 'crash' end. You do not care about ANYONE. It seems they all got cast by meeting Mr. Andrews, who 'promised' they'd 'star in' his big, Hollywood' movie.

A female novice pilot who has no business driving a car much less flying a plane, decides to take the most unlikeable group of friends on a plane ride for reasons really unknown. Her mom died on a plane, so I guess she wanted to die too or something. her friends include the most annoying jock character written, a undeveloped boyfriend character (a most important character by the end for some random reason), a love lost emo and a shallow best friend. They end up in a mysterious cloud, things happen that really don't make sense and the ending you see coming a mile away. The main girl is a raging c-word to her pointless boyfriend (apparently this is a important plot point?). These kids sans the boyfriend remind you of the popular kids you hated in high school. The positives reviews Have to be plants from the industry. Avoid this film, the premise is awful and you end up wanting whatever it is in the cloud to eat them faster. Note to writers of these films, stop writing for the twilight, jersey shore crowd and make the characters quasi likable so the viewer can be emotionally invested, I was more sympathetic to whatever was in the clouds than these people.

A young pilot flies a twin-engine plane into the dark clouds with four friends and mayhem ensues.

Although ridiculous due to outrageous inaccuracies regarding planes, cold and oxygen, the movie did have some decent cinematography. And although some of the dialogue was atrocious, the "Twilight Zone" feel of the story was fairly decent.

As someone who is deathly afraid of flying (may kryptonite – besides mathematics), the movie played on those fears, though I had to laugh at some of the flying related abominations. Yes, since it's my fear, I try to know as much about flying as possible.

The good news is that this is a fast ninety minutes with some decent tension. If writer Paul Birkett had paid more attention to the realities of flight, this would have been a far stronger film and a better horror.