In world that is filled with crappy comedies such as You Don't Mess with the Zohan and The Love Guru, its nice to see that an older comedy such as Airplane can still be hilarious to this day even after its been around for almost three decades. Airplane at its core is mainly one large spoof on everything in pop culture from famous commercials, to movies that were popular back in the day such as Saturday Night Fever. While the movie does have a story line that follows the love sick Ted Striker (Robert Hays), as he attempts to get the woman of his life back all the while trying to combat his phobia of flying which was brought on by the vietnam war when he was in the air force. Its cheesy, but for all intensive purposes, it actually works to the movies advantage. With puns and sexual innuendos galore, its easy to see why the directors picked such a cheesy story to poke fun at; I mean airplane food poisoning half passengers, resulting in Stryker himself having to fly the airplane to safety...come on. But again, it all comebacks to the characters and the numerous puns which keep the that story much more entertaining and engaging than it should be. This is in part due to the outrageous characters such as Dr. Rumack (Leslie Nielsen) who has countless comedic lines such as "I am serious....and don't call me Shirley." That being said though, the movie does have a couple of down sides particularly in some of the references to older forms of pop culture. Now I know this movie was made in 1980, but it would have been nice if the directors could have provided some info beforehand instead of younger viewers(such as myself) trying to figure out why this particular character said what they said. Even with these minor faults, its hard not be captured in the hilarious and the overly cliche story that is Airplane. So, if you're looking for a comedy that has countless puns and sexual references, combined with hilarious acting and excellent writing , there is just simply no way you could go wrong with Airplane. 4.5/5.0
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