airplanes

• Air Force One directed by Wolfgang Petersen (1997)

  [6/10]

  "Air Force One provides good action and some suspenseful moments, but after multiple viewings, you find yourself saying, 'Oh, sure. Like the president would really have . . .'"

• Flightplan directed by Robert Schwentke (2005)

  [5/10]

  "Flightplan recreates Jodie Foster's character in Panic Room but puts her in a much bigger room (a jumbo jet) and with a bigger cast."

• Flyboys directed by Tony Bill (2006)

  [6/10]

  "Essentially, you should see Flyboys for the excellent dogfights. You need the basic story line so you will care enough about the pilots when they die, but otherwise the plot doesn't do much to enlighten the audience about Americans serving in the French military as some of the first wartime aviators."

• Snakes on a Plane directed by David R. Ellis (2006)

  [4/10]

  "Sure, Snakes on a Plane just duplicates the clichés of most air-disaster movies, but with Samuel L. Jackson, you just have more fun watching the mayhem."

• Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk (1999)

  [6/10]

  "I found this the most enjoyable of the Palahniuk novels I have read. The plot keeps taking unexpected turns, and Palahniuk avoids overusing his tendency to repeat key phrases throughout the book."

• United 93 directed by Paul Greengrass (2006)

  [7/10]

  "United 93 walks us through the transition from before 9/11 to after 9/11. Our lives take place with a much more hectic set of background noises playing than before, and with United 93, we watch the exact moment when the background noise increased."

• World Trade Center directed by Oliver Stone (2006)

  [6/10]

  "Stone does an excellent job of developing his characters, in spite of having his main characters immobolized in a pile of rubble. He also never allows the story to get overly sentimental and avoids overtly manipulating the audience's emotions."

  Average score: 5.71