7500
starring Jamie Chung, Ryan Kwanten, Amy Smart, Nicky Whelan, Scout Taylor-Compton, Leslie Bibb, Jerry Ferrara, Aja Evan and Rick Kelly
written by Craig Rosenberg
directed by Takashi Shimizu
Rating: ♦◊◊◊◊
This is a supernatural horror about a plane disaster. Flight 7500 (a Boeing 747) from Los Angeles to Haneda, Tokyo experiences severe mid-air turbulence that causes the oxygen masks to deploy. In the real world this would cause an immediate flight abort and return to the nearest airport. But in the movies that never happens. The passengers struggle to apply their masks. Everyone is scared. But after a few rough moments the turbulence dissipates, the pilot determines that no major damage has occurred, so he decides to continue on to Tokyo.
One passenger, Lance, a creepy-looking guy who boarded clutching a black carry-on bag in a suspicious manner, experiences a medical emergency after the oxygen mask incident and subsequently dies. His body is sequestered in the upper lounge of the plane.
I knew the film was basically crap because the dumb director can`t tell an interesting story in a coherent manner.
More and more things happen on the flight. Curious passengers trace the beginning of strange events to Lance’s death, so they decide to search his belongings to learn more about him. They find a small wooden box, and inside a Japanese “shinigami” ‘death doll.’ Another passenger just happens to know all about Japanese death dolls, so she explains it as a being who collects people’s souls after they die, but only if they let go of whatever is holding them to this world. Of course, the director, Takashi Shimizu, is Japanese. But this insertion was totally meaningless, stupid and lame. It annoyed me so much that I knew the film was basically crap right then. Dumb director can’t tell an interesting story in a coherent manner.
When boarding the plane in Los Angeles a couple of the young adult passengers are heard describing this trip to Japan as “the vacation of a lifetime.” I live here. I don’t think of it that way, but it’s a matter of perspective, I guess. I find living here almost exactly like living in Guelph, Ontario. Every place in the world is basically the same as every other place.