There was an intention in making Airplane—to mock a melodramatic disaster film's most ridiculous moments by placing it into a comedy context. That's there, sure, but the whole is such a wacky, bizarre comedy that I don't think the film is particularly artful and its goal is swallowed up by its execution, where it seemed that literally anything proposed made it into the script for the purpose of a laugh.
I've praised artful parody before in the case of Young Frankenstein, but Airplane! presents a pretty good argument for the worth of a sophomoric free-for-all, since the film is hysterical. It wears its time pretty heavily today, with the culture of the 1970s and some of its social attitudes being hard to ignore as some jokes' references have become obscure and others are bigoted, but the film moves too fast and doesn't make a big enough deal of its more offensive jokes for me to really be upset by them. Some jokes miss, but there are so many it's not a problem. The comedy offers a ton of variety at its breakneck pace, too. The film is fully absurdist, bordering on outright surreal, but gags range from visual comedy, Black Comedy, deliberately corny literal gags, and edgy and sexual shock humor. On top of that, there are elements of parody, including of the source film Zero Hour! whose script was adapted into this film with its most striking and amusing lines left intact.
Airplane feels like it was written and produced by idiot teenagers who thought they were hilarious, except they turned out to be correct. With the acknowledgment that it's dated and makes some jokes I don't like, it's still a wild, crazy flight and works far better than it has any reason to.
Comedy distilled into insanity.
There was an intention in making Airplane—to mock a melodramatic disaster film's most ridiculous moments by placing it into a comedy context. That's there, sure, but the whole is such a wacky, bizarre comedy that I don't think the film is particularly artful and its goal is swallowed up by its execution, where it seemed that literally anything proposed made it into the script for the purpose of a laugh.
I've praised artful parody before in the case of Young Frankenstein, but Airplane! presents a pretty good argument for the worth of a sophomoric free-for-all, since the film is hysterical. It wears its time pretty heavily today, with the culture of the 1970s and some of its social attitudes being hard to ignore as some jokes' references have become obscure and others are bigoted, but the film moves too fast and doesn't make a big enough deal of its more offensive jokes for me to really be upset by them. Some jokes miss, but there are so many it's not a problem. The comedy offers a ton of variety at its breakneck pace, too. The film is fully absurdist, bordering on outright surreal, but gags range from visual comedy, Black Comedy, deliberately corny literal gags, and edgy and sexual shock humor. On top of that, there are elements of parody, including of the source film Zero Hour! whose script was adapted into this film with its most striking and amusing lines left intact.
Airplane feels like it was written and produced by idiot teenagers who thought they were hilarious, except they turned out to be correct. With the acknowledgment that it's dated and makes some jokes I don't like, it's still a wild, crazy flight and works far better than it has any reason to.