Release Date:  December 17, 2004
Rating:  PG-13 (for some language, action and violence)
Genre:   Action/Adventure
Run Time: 1 hr. 54 min.
Director:    John Moore
Actors:    Dennis Quaid, Giovanni Ribisi, Tyrese Gibbons, Miranda Otto, Tony Curran, Sticky Fingaz, Jacob Vargaz, Hugh Laurie, Scott Michael Campbell,

Just when I thought it was safe to go back into the theatres, we get another disaster flick.  By disaster, I am not referring to Los Angeles falling into the ocean, monsters attacking New York, or people crashing their plane in the desert, as they actually do in this film.  I mean disaster – as in the movie itself.  Because, unlike the mythological Phoenix that gives the film its name, there’s no resurrecting this bird.

Dennis Quaid plays smug Captain Frank Towns, who flies out to foreign-based oil rigs and shuts them down, then pulls out the workers on behalf of the big corporation they all work for.  To Towns and his engineer/co-pilot, AJ (Tyrese Gibbons), they’re just “a bunch of zeroes” going out “with the trash,” and it shows in their smarty-pants attitude.  But this time, as Towns and AJ attempt to fly out of Mongolia, they encounter a sandstorm and crash into the Gobi Desert.

It’s the hottest season of the year and they’re hundreds of miles off course, with little hope for rescue.  But when a drifter named Elliott (Giovanni Ribisi) suggests they build a new plane out of the wreckage, Towns has no interest.  He’d rather wait it out – or die waiting.  But after one crew member goes missing and another takes off, Towns agrees to try.  They’re almost out of water, anyway.

Wow.  It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a film this bad – maybe a whole two weeks – so this one really took me by surprise.  Apparently faithful to the 1965 original, which boasted great actors like James Stewart, Ernest Borgnine and Richard Attenborough, this may be the only thing this film has going for it – and that includes Quaid’s performance.  Quaid is consistently top notch (and does a great job in the upcoming film, “In Good Company”), but he’s definitely off-kilter here.  He’s far better than the rest of the cast, but that’s not saying much.

Tyrese, a former male model (“Baby Boy”), does a respectable job, as does the lone female, Mirando Otto (“The Lord of the Rings” series) and Hugh Laurie.  But everyone else, from Jacob Vargas, as the token Latino, to Tony Curran, as the outback cool dude, to rapper Sticky Fingaz – yes, that’s his name, and we won’t try and guess where that came from – is terrible.  I have no idea what Ribisi was doing, with his pseudo-psychotic weirdness and blond hair.  I kept waiting for him to curl up his fingers and say, “Mwa-ha-ha!”