This is not a big summer blockbuster with $100's of millions for its budget. However, when I saw this movie at my local video store, I decided to rent it (had nothing better to do on a Saturday night). I put it in the DVD player and was ready to fall asleep on the couch watching it. I was really surprised that I actually found myself getting into it. The CGI is nowhere near Industrial Light and Magic level, but not really that bad. The story is good, the acting was way better than I expected, Yeah it is a low-budget film, but as long as you go in not expecting a highly technical film, I thought this film was fun. I even went as far as to purchase this film. Adam Baldwin's character was good... I really wanted him to die a very horrible and slow death, and you know what they say... If you find yourself hating the villain in the film, then he did a good job as an actor! Rent this movie just for fun, like I did... You just may be surprised like I was...

** HERE BE SPOILERS ** Recap: Transcon with Christopher Bannon (Baldwin) at the helm is the corporation in charge of the Air Races, which is exactly what it sounds like, a race with jet (fighter) planes. During a race Grant Irvine (Sabato Jr) is involved in an accident while refueling. His tanker plane goes up in flamer and his brother Kevin (Sutton) barely makes it out. A few fellow pilots and some spectators are not so fortunate, they are killed. An investigation bans Bannon from arranging Air Races and Grant's license is revoked. Four years later, the ban is lifted and Grant is recruited to work as crew chief aboard the tanker, while his brother Kevin will race...Comments: The entire story is one giant plot hole. It is easy to predict and not in any way consistent. Rules of the race are suddenly made up just to legitimize some twist everyone has seen coming a mile away, even if that rule completely contradicts the earlier story. The geographic errors are huge. In one stage they are supposed to go from Buenos Aires to Paris. When trouble arise the closest airfield is in Sri Lanka! Other stages of the races are (thankfully) ignored completely without even telling the viewer, it is impossible to know where the pilots are. Other long stretches that are shown are dull and boring, while crucial information and development is ignored and just told the viewer through commentary. The jets is never more than 10 feet from each other and frequently bump into each other, mostly without any effect. Even if two jets leave the group and fly a detour through a city they will still be in the lead when rejoining the group. Some stunts the pilots do actually had me thinking of Hot Shots, but while that was a comedy, this is trying to be a realistic action. What I'm trying to say is that the story is mostly boring, incomprehensible and full of obvious errors. In addition all jets are computer generated, and mostly poorly so, even while stationary on the ground. In conclusion, there are no reasons to see this movie, and lots of them to avoid it...2/10

(2008 edit: Try to keep in mind, while reading, that I was 16 when I wrote this.)I don't even know where to start. They slapped an F-16 Fighting Falcon patch on the guy's jacket, and yet an F-16 was never even shown in the flick. Of course, all the fake jets they used tried to *look* like F-16s - if they didn't have two engines. The oxygen masks they used looked like gas masks. Not only is the air THIN up there... it's TOXIC too! Wow, how futuristic. It's also impossible to fly they way they were. Ugh... wow, this movie is a black hole, a straw, a pump, a jet INTAKE, or (insert name of something that sucks worse here).That's not even talking about the horrid job they did with the audio and the "Infomercial" audience who, during one scene, mysteriously broke into astounding applause for no apparent reason. The slo-mo was there, the music was there... but why? Where's the situation?Speaking of slo-mo... uh... mind telling me WHY there was so much slo-mo? It's like "Woow, dude, this guy's, like... flying...".They also left the script hanging like a bunch of loose threads. During the second air refueling scene in the storm, they completely left out how the REST of the refuelings went. One went bad, they made a big deal over that, and never told us how the rest went. Last time I checked, they were running out of fuel with no other options, and...uh... so how did the rest get fuel? *sigh*I just can't stop thinking about why they bought that F-16 patch off eBay and yet never even used an F-16. Heck, they never even MENTIONED F-16s to give them credit in this movie. Also, there was another real-life fighter (what, an F-15 or F-18?) on the front cover... yet... not in the movie. All fake, computer-generated jets. I bet the writers went to, like, a Russian air force base, saw the "For Rent!" signs in the windows of the fighters, and said "Wow, a script idea!" :-)Then... oh jeez... that little part with the knocked-out pilot. Somehow or another, there's a Matrix-like vitals monitor (which use PUMPS as visuals for breathing...) - as if this were VR or something, and it says "Oh Man! This Dude's Dying!". They "dock" this jet inside the refueling plane, pull out the pilot, and do all this stuff to him, including sticking him, like a sword, with a gigantic syringe or something ("HEE-YA!"). That whole scene lost me. Oh well, onward.The ending? 4 pilots are already dead. Two are left to battle it out, and one of them goes down (not the hero of the movie, noooo). The hero of the movie thinks "oh no i couldn't possibly win this because my only competition's engine blew up! NOOO! I have GOT to eject a perfectly good plane, forfeit 25 MILLION bucks, and save one of the 5 pilots who went down! WOO!".... What were these writers thinking?! *sigh*This movie is my new official "Bad" benchmark.Well, gotta give the writers and director kudos for effort... *heh*

While an interesting movie, it really seemed unfinished. The sound quality and the editing are of the worst I've ever seen in a professional movie. Sometimes during scene changes the original sound is retained during the cuts so it changes volume as the scene changes. There's one really bad noticeable example of this when Chris (Adam Baldwin) is making an announcement and the first part of the scene shows him from the left side, then it cuts to a close up of his face. The audio is extremely different between the two cuts, yet the scene is supposed to be continuous.Another strange thing about the editing is when they'd "follow" Chris around during the TV broadcasts, but as he would be moving forward, the cuts would be seemly random, from his front, left side, right side, and back. It's hard to explain, but when you watch a person moving forward, the cuts need to progress as if he's moving forward. This movie had him jumping all over the place, it actually gave me a headache.Other times, really noticeable overdubbing takes place where the voice doesn't even match the movements of the actors mouth. The air-show audience reminded me of an infomercial audience; their energy didn't match what is going on at that time, and their audio cuts in and out abruptly with them, when sometimes the audience audio should have continued into the next scene, fading out over time.Also, when the two major disasters took place in the air, the audio didn't mirror the "urgency" of the visual. While a disastrous effect is taking place visual, the sound did not raise volume or create urgency -- it took a few moments to realize something bad was happening, because the sound did not give much audio clue to it. I think this alone caused some of the great emotion that could have been attained in this movie to fall completely flat.And what was with that trailer-trash couple sitting on their couch in the living room that gets cut to during the movie????? My humble opinion is that if you're going to cut to random at-home TV people, at least use a lot of different people so we don't start to think this single at-home TV family is part of the plot.Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen a movie with such choppy, sloppy, editing, or such bad sound in my entire life. I was shocked as I watched it that a movie could actually be released when it seems it's not even ready. I liked the story and I liked the actors. It's strange these days to see a movie where the tech is screwed up because normally that's the flawless parts of the movie and it's usually the writing or acting that's bad.This movie could have been 10 times better if it had better sound or editing! Why didn't the producer fire the editors? That's what I want to know!