Watching Final Voyage is like watching one of those murder investigations you can find on any of the 134 police procedural dramas currently running on prime-time TV. You have plenty of perpetrators (director, writer, cast), a few witnesses (dummies like me), the murder weapons (camera, script) but no motive. Why make a film like this?
Low-budget films have to stay within certain boundaries. Special effects must be used sparingly. Locations are a prime consideration. If you've got just a couple million dollars, you're not going to make The Lord of the Rings; this is why so many low-budget action films take place in deserts or old buildings or someone's house. The people behind Final Voyage couldn't afford to show what was written but that didn't seem to keep them from trying. There's always stock footage but they seem to have opted for the lamest stock footage available. A big cruise ship carries over two thousand people but the film tries to get away with less than a hundred. So why make this film? I can only hypothesize that Final Voyage was made to try to hook people who liked Titanic 2 years earlier. Idiotic as that sounds, I'm sure it was posited, "…hmmm… Titanic made 1.8 billion dollars… if just two percent of those teenage girls got drunk enough to go rent this…"
Most of the bad films I review are rentals (You think I'd keep a copy of Battlefield Earth laying around the house? What if company comes over?), but I actually own this baby. What really makes Final Voyage worthwhile is the hilarious commentary track, in which Director Jim Wynorski (AKA Jay Andrews but a lousy filmmaker by any name) and actress Claudia Christian completely trash the film to the extent that I don't think the MST3K guys could have done any better. This is great when you consider most commentary tracks are akin to old commie propaganda, about how some garbage movie was really, really great but just misunderstood. More on the commentary later.
The credits begin in grand fashion as names come flying at us Superman:The Movie style. The letters drift apart as they get closer like an approaching jet fighter formation; only instead of being hit by a bomb, we'll watch one. The music is equally overblown and epic-sounding to the point where it would seem appropriate only for a film about the history of the entire universe, rather than the a dopey direct-to-DVD Jim Wynorski movie.
After that grand opening, the action begins in earnest as we see… stock footage of an airport. Years of seeing planes flying, I suppose, has gotten me jaded. We get the first glimpse of our hero Aaron, as he boards a plane. Aaron is played by Dylan Walsh, now best known for his role on the tv series Nip/Tuck, where he plays a plastic surgeon. Nowadays, I'm sure he'd like to find a way to surgically remove himself from this film. Anyway, here he is working as a bodyguard escorting some old hag of an actress on a flight. In real life, this woman is a former Playboy playmate, but don't get excited; from the looks of her I'm guessing that occurred back when Playboy was chiseled on stone tablets. The not-so-ambiguously gay steward fawns over her. I can only imagine the director advised the actor beforehand, "Your character's motivation is… gay". Aaron and the old hag get settled and Aaron mentions his fear of flying. He should have a fear of whatever it is that attacked his hairdo. I'm guessing he either ran into a low-hanging ceiling fan or lost a fight to a weed-whacker. The old hag sports what I guess is supposed to be an expensive diamond broach but it looks more like a flattened-out muffin tin. Two other passengers, one a sunglass-wearing chubby guy and the other a long-haired guy with beard stubble (who strangely smiles), keep looking at the old hag for some odd reason.
Now we get thrilling stock footage shots of the plane going down the runway, then taking off, then flying. While in flight, all we see on the side of the plane is '747' and 'Boeing'. Wow, Boeing wants to control every part of the industry now, I guess. On the commentary track Director Wynorski said that it was actually a clip of a Pan-Am plane but the logos had to be wiped out. That's understandable, as Pan-Am was having enough problems already but wouldn't the filmmaker simply opt for a wider shot? A better question might be, "Why am I thinking so hard about this?" For bad movie connoisseurs like me, this question comes up a lot.
Back to the action, or lack thereof. Sunglass guy gets up and grabs a handgun from what looks like a first aid kit (don't ask how he got it on board, it isn't explained) and heads toward the cockpit. Stubbly-beard guy finally stops with that dumb smile long enough to get up and pulls out his gun (again, don't ask). Another guy, this one with even longer hair than stubbly-beard guy, comes in and he has a gun too (again, please don't ask, really, just don't). It is announced that the plane is being hijacked. A sign that this film is from the pre-9/11 era is that the passengers do nothing. If Final Voyage were made today, lame as it is, I think it'd have to realistically portray the three terrorists getting pounced on like three Victoria's Secret models dropped into a maximum-security prison.
Sunglass guy busts into the cockpit (I mean, simply opens the door) and holds the pilot at gunpoint. Aaron gets up to reason with stubbly-beard guy. Instead of simply shooting Aaron, stubbly-beard guy lets him get close enough to grab his gun. They struggle for it and wind up shooting long-haired guy. Long-haired guy slightly brushes against the emergency door; of course, it collapses and he falls out, depressurizing the cabin. We see some stock footage of a plane turning slightly. In case we couldn't tell that its now very windy in the plane, the filmmakers helpfully toss around what seems like hundreds of Sunday newspapers. This would not at all be out of place in a film like Airplane!, except that Airplane! is intentionally funny… and watchable.
Aaron hits stubbly-beard guy a few times, causing him to grab a rail to keep him in the plane as his body goes horizontal. A stewardess knocks stubbly-beard guy's hand off the rail, resulting in him being sucked out the plane as if he were a feather. Oddly, Aaron isn't affected by the vacuum at all even though he was standing right next to stubbly-beard guy and wasn't even holding anything. I didn't think he weighed that much. Aaron grabs a gun and is able to shoot the returning sunglass guy, the pilot lowers the plane and all is saved. The plane eventually lands; how do I know? Because some helpful stock footage of the Pan-Am… er… generic plane landing is shown to us. I have a hunch that not even instructional piloting videos contain as much stock footage of planes as this film has.
Cut to a diner (youngsters, check Wikipedia for a description) where Aaron, his hair still looking the victim of yard tools, is getting bitched at by his superior. I guess the bitching is for killing the terrorists and saving every person on board the plane. His superior states that the old hag actress is suffering from severe emotional trauma but doesn't specify whether it resulted from the attempted hijacking or from seeing Aaron's hair. As punishment, Aaron… receives his next bodyguard assignment.
Aaron, or at least a stuntman who resembles Aaron from a hundred feet away, drives a dirt bike out to the landing strip where he is to meet Gloria, the young rich girl he has been assigned to escort. He sees a limo, but it only contains Gloria's assistant, who informs him that Gloria will be by shortly. A single-engine plane appears and comes in for a landing. In another hilarious scene, as the plane slows down, we see the cockpit occupied by a chubby guy in a collared shirt. Cut to Aaron and then back to the plane, where we now see Erika Eleniak coming out of the cockpit, wearing a tanktop. One might note that Erika looks decidedly not male and not chubby; well, at least back in 1999, when this film was made. Perhaps this film occurs in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine universe and Erika is a carefree, shapeshifting niece of Odo but I doubt it.
