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 personally love aviation, and science fiction is always a thriller. I thought the two would be a good mixture in this film, but I was wrong. As a common rule, any movie below a 7.5 rating on IMDb should be avoided, (unless Nicholas Cage happens to be in it). Anyway, I broke my rule- and now I regret it. Honestly, a sixth grader could have written better script than this, and could have provided better CGI as well. The title is "Collision course", but the movie is not based around an air- collision at all. It revolves around a solar flare causing an EMP. The near miss air collision is only one of many events to occur. Everyone is stuck in the Chicago terminal after their connecting flight is canceled, (big surprise). The desk clerk is frantically trying to calm everyone, including a very dogmatic hillbilly. Suddenly, the CEO of the company happens to show up, and gets everyone a connecting flight, YAY! Everyone gets on board, and turns out the CEO just so happens to be the Flight Steward too- and is the only flight steward. Kate Parks, whom the story sort of revolves around, calls her inconsiderate teenage daughter and tells her to go to grandmas for the night. We hear a lot of unneeded dialog. Everyone is seated- and the hillbilly happens to sit behind a bearded man. The hillbilly nudges his partner and says, "Oh boy, we got Bin Laden on board!" (The script writers portray the southerner very stereo-typically, as racist and as a xenophobe- which wasn't necessary for this movie.) The pilots get the all clear to take off- now they are in the air. The Captain then reaches to turn on the autopilot- and suddenly, the EMP strikes! ZAAAAAAAPPPPPPPP! Both Pilots get electrocuted for some odd reason, and the plane starts shaking. The Captain is dead, and copilot is unconscious- BUT THE PLANE IS STILL FLYING! Woo, thank goodness he turned on the auto pilot before he died! We see Grandma Parks, who works a restaurant by herself- gets thrown off a stool because of the EMP. She falls down- and her stove starts spewing out propane- AND THERE IS A LIT CANDLE INSIDE!!!!! Not much time left until Grandma fries! *Back to the plane in the air. Everyone is stressed. The CEO/Flight Attendant decides to check on the pilots after a few minutes. He knocks on the door- no response. He then uses his KEYS to get inside the cockpit. How convenient! They call in a medic, who figures out they died of electrocution. Osama then suspects it was an EMP, and the Hillbilly then thinks Osama planted an EMP Bomb in the plane! YES, IT MUST HAVE BEEN AN EMP BOMB; ITS SO EASY TO GET PAST CUSTOMS WITH THOSE! The southerner guy continues to be a nuisance. Osama then says, "I was born in Nebraska." The Hillbilly then says, "Sure OBAMA, until I see a birth certificate, I Ain't buying it!" -This is a direct quote. Alright, you get the picture. The Auto Pilot shorts out- everyone panics- Kate has to disable the autopilot, but the buttons are stuck. The copilot then stops breathing- they use the defibrillator, and he wakes up. YAY! He tells Kate to go in the cargo hold and flip the breaker. The Hillbilly volunteers to go with her. They go down in the massive cargo hold- which has 8 foot high ceilings. Very cozy, more room down there than in the cabin! Kate finds the breaker- and flips it. The plane goes haywire. A dog then gets loose and tries to bite several people on board. But- the dog trainer calms the dog. The plane is nearing the airport- only two air traffic controllers are on duty. They can't communicate with any aircraft. Several planes collide killing many people. One of the controllers happens to be a hacker for the Air Force- he hacks into NASA's satellite system, and calls everyone on the plane. He tells Kate she needs to land soon. NASA finds out someone hacked into the system- and locks him out. DARN! Kate has to land the plane by herself! She starts pushing buttons, (as if she knows what she is doing). They are coming in fast! (500 mph to be exact) She says, "Were coming in too fast, I will have to try a reverse maneuver and land the plane! My husband died trying to do this!" She turns the plane to the side, and lands safely. Whoooooooo. Big relief. An inexperienced passenger just happens to land a plane traveling 500 mph- and stops in the middle of the runway with plenty of room to spare. I would list every stupid storyline if I could, but I am limited to 1,000 words. You have to watch the movie to see every stupid thing. Wait, don't watch it. Alright, let's wrap this up. I really hate this movie with a passion. It is a disgrace to all Sci-Fi. The story line is horrible- and the dialog is cheesy. Like I said before, a sixth grader could have written better dialog. It seemed like to me the story writers lacked any knowledge in what an EMP really does, and how to write a story in general. In the movie- the EMP targets SOME electronics. In real life, an EMP would FRY every electronic. So, in reality, the plane shouldn't have been working at all- no lights, no electricity, and no autopilot. Somehow, the ATC works, and the telephone lines work. This film was jam packed with every scenario during a solar storm, but still was not accurate at all. It's like a hodgepodge of very unfortunate events on a plane- dog escapes, pilots electrocuted, and they nearly hit another plane. This movie should be used in Guantanamo bay for torture. That's all I have to say.

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