3 out of 5

Director: Robert Tinnell

Bad? Nah, it’s okay. Air Panic is a typical late 90s DTV action movie, but sidesteps a lot of obnoxious problems (over-budgeting, having pointless subplots) and keeps focused on its main characters to succeed in making a nice, average experience. Nicole (Cuthbert) – is a 13(?) year old brat who is the daughter of Joe Montegna – the owner of a giganto technology company. Nicole is on a private flight en route to her parents, complaining to her company babysitters about the current money-driven family dynamic. Lightning strikes the plane! Pilots electrocuted! Something flies through the air and knocks all passengers unconscious but Nicole! Auto-pilot kicks in and then the “disaster” plot points get rolling… as things add up and up to make getting Nicole back safely on the ground more difficult. The movie avoids any telling outside plane shots and focuses mostly on Cuthbert and action inside the plane. The “rogue” air traffic controller and the whole emotional family bonding are also given enough screen time to matter but not enough to be obnoxious. And there’s enough air jargon thrown in there to make the whole thing seem fairly believable. Is it good? Of course not – it’s average. But the performances are above par for this kind of stuff and while it suffers the same problem most disaster movies have – where the final solution makes all previous attempts pointless – it’s still pretty exciting. Exciting enough for three stars, anyway.