Reviewed By

Christopher Armstead
A friend of mine likes to ask me juvenile questions, even though we are into our forties, like 'Chris, ever wonder who would win a fight between Batman vs. Wolverine?' or 'Chris, ever wonder who would a fight between Godzilla vs. Gamera?'  The answer to those questions, and so many more, or 'No… I never wondered about that', but then clearly he just failed to asked the real question.  The only question that mattered.  The question that nobody has dared ask.  That question being, 'What would win in a fight between an Airplane and a Volcano'.  Finally… we have an answer.

Somewhere around Hawaii the tectonic lava boiler plates have interfaced to cause a gigantic magma diffusion temporal shift.  It's a bad thing.  Numerous volcanoes have sprouted up and are erupting like mad and causing destruction.  No worries though, super angry Colonel Ryker (Mike Jerome Putman) is yelling at people and shouting out orders and doing absolutely nothing to solve this problem.  Fortunately for us, the ancient but still crazy hot volcanologist Dr. Lisa Whitmore (Robin Givens) is on the scene because she's the best there is and he needs her there.  Or at least that's what she told the Colonel.  She doesn't really do much of anything either, at least until the end.

The airplane, however, is the issue.  The pilots probably could've flown around it, but magma disturbances fried their instruments and now they are smack square in the middle of these islands of volcanos and it is not looking good.  It's looking worse because both pilots, somehow, got themselves killed.  Hell if I know how that happened.  Good thing that we have the skilled but emotionally damaged pilot Rick Pierce (Dean Cain) in the cabin, and he's going fly us into safety.  Or at least he would if the plane wasn't locked on autopilot, needing codes to unlock it, known only by the pilots, who are dead.  As such, the autopilot is now programmed to fly in circles within these erupting volcanos.  Dumbest autopilot ever.  Rich has just enough control over this mega sized plane to duck and dodge volcanic meteorites. 
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The challenge is to keep our First Class passengers calm, because at no point do we ever travel behind that blue curtain to check on Coach.   The discount ticket passengers in this movie are totally dead.  Fortunately, there are some really colorful people in First Class to keep us entertained, such as hardcore Air Marshall Jim Kirkland, as played by the legendary Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, who says all kinds of sweet, somewhat creepy things to this little white kid to keep him calm.  Then there's Rita (Tamara Goodwin), the air waitress with the large, full, forever glistening lips, there's also Landon (Matt Mercer) who by chance happens to be a volcano expert and will be our exposition guy, and we need a Freak Out Guy which will be provided by Mr. Crieger (David Vega) who we knew already was trouble because he seems to be of Middle Eastern descent.  That's not me profiling this cat, but the film directors the Kondelik Brothers who have profiled this clown.   But despite all these colorful people, none are probably more important the Frank the Handyman (Anthony Marks) who performs a feat so stupefyingly stupid that he's my new personal hero and the wallpaper on my cellphone. 

Back on the ground we need a solution to get these people safe, or rather hard working Specialist Tully (Morgan West) needs a solution because the Colonel doesn't want to sacrifice his men, or anything.  Thus it's up to Specialist Tully to sacrifice his men for him.  At the end of this movie the powers that be congratulate Spec. Tully, when in all honesty he should be carted off to the nearest firing squad.  Seriously. 

Anyway, despite all the best efforts, the Airplane is getting its ass kicked by the Volcano, people are dying left and right, but that super smart volcanologist we mentioned earlier has a plan.  That includes shooting rockets at the volcano, which I could've thought of and I have no volcanology degree, but then I also would've kept my jacket on throughout the entire film where Dr. Lisa took hers off halfway, wearing a way too tight tank top and distracted us from the fact that she's not much of volcanologist.  Its round fifteen in this epic fight, but the airplane is about to Rocky Balboa on that Volcano behind.

A couple of years back the Asylum dropped 'Air Collision' on us and I declared that compendium of total nonsense the best film they've ever released.  Is it possible that they've captured lightning in a bottle twice with 'Airplane vs. Volcano?  Not quite, but almost.  Like that film, this film is batshit insane, it grips to no form of reality on any planet that I'm aware of, characters sacrifice themselves so often that I was beginning to think this movie was part Pagan Ritual, the cast is acting in this film as if they were reenacting 'Hamlet', and it moves like one of those flaming volcanic meteorites is bearing down on its ass.  For the most part.  It's that 'most part' that keeps it below 'Air Collision' with that 'Most Part' representing oppressive melodrama.  Lots and lots of speeches about dead love ones, missing people, about helpless kids, dying speeches,  angry dude speeches… melodrama, the mortal enemy of the bad disaster movie.

But at least there is a lot of fantastic, unrealistic insanity to somewhat equalize most of this melodrama.  Jumbo jets that dodge meteorites?  Or my man who space walked on the side of the plane to do something complete dumb, just to die a glorious death?  Or the Air Marshall's awesome plan to save everybody which included parachuting out of a moving plane, attached to an inflatable raft into volcanic waters… with the amazing thing being that I think the plan might've worked.  Or that the cabin that never depressurized no matter how many times they opened a door or a cargo hold.  And I haven't seen overacting this intense since I saw the local Community Theater's rendition of 'Death of a Salesman'. 

True, 'Airplane vs. Volcano' is no 'Air Collision'… I mean what is?  Right?  But every couple of years The Asylum gives us something which gives us justification as to why we watch all of their awful movies, and today this biennial event calls itself 'Airplane vs. Volcano'. 
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