I guess there comes a time in everybody’s life when you watch an R-rated comedy only to realise, “oh no…I’m too old for this”. For a whole generation it was Freddy Got Fingered (2001). For me it was Airplane Mode (2019).
I genuinely don’t know who this movie is made for; the humour is only really fit for fourteen-year-old boys, but the boobs and excessive swearing and oh god, the boobs mean that the only people who can see it are over eighteen. Maybe if they were to steal Daddy's credit card to pay for the rental on YouTube, the target audience could see it...but how did the filmmakers ever think this could be a success?
I get it, the kids are all up in the youtubes these days, so you gotta make a movie about YouTubers with YouTubers and slap it on YouTube so all the kids watch it. But this is not the way to do it! Any way except this way...
Please God! Don’t let this be the way of the future!
STORY
Sex. The way fourteen-year-olds view sex. That is the plot. The end.
You want more specifics? Okay, well specifically virginity, homosexuality and how long someone can give a blowjob. All of this is also from the eyes of a pubescent teenage boy who has never seen a boob before, so they've tried to get as many boobs as possible into an 80 minute film.
Logan Paul, who turns twenty-five this year, and his twenty-four-year-old foreign exchange brother, Juanpa Zurita, are apparently real people in the real world who are so deeply obsessed with just the concept of sex that they to go to a social media convention in Australia because that is apparently the only way to have sex. As his horny YouTuber friends (who are apparently all real YouTubers, but I’m too old to know or care) exclaim, that’s the only reason conventions were invented: to f**k.
On their way there, the pilots die because no one turned their phone to airplane mode, so now Logan has to land the plane and Juanpa needs to have sex before he dies. Then we’re treated to a bad remake of Flying High (1980), but add some plot about some YouTube prankster who also happens to be killing the only people who can save the day. I dunno. I think he is also a real YouTube prankster, but once again: too old, don’t care. Also Logan can read gay peoples' minds. I don't know why. Apparently that's funny.
The original Flying High also has a very bare plot, but at least its jokes are funny. The funniest jokes in Airplane Mode are just the same jokes, reskinned and made dull. The jokes that aren’t from Flying High are just YouTubers screaming, a lot. At the seven minute mark, six YouTubers scream and jump up and down for a whole minute, only to give us some levity by showing us CGI termites shooting a termite porno between the floors...then they scream and jump again.
Pictured: Quality YouTuber comedy for a solid minute
There is a lot of screaming. Just at the camera, screaming.
I feel nauseous.
2/10
THEME
Now, don’t get me wrong, I was fourteen once. I too once gazed upon a boob and had an erection that lasted me a week, with no idea what to do to stop it. It happens to all of us. But rather than looking back on that awkward time of your life with a sheepish grin and blushed cheeks, Airplane Mode decides that that's just how sex is, and that's that. It’s not funny. It’s just uncomfortable.
You could maybe argue that the film is making a statement about our obsession with social media and our phones as a society, as that’s what downs the pilots in the first place. Except for the fact that this movie is made by YouTubers, and they're too busy screaming to be trying to say anything.
Pictured: Please. Stop. I don't want the neighbours to hear my shame.
Did I mention the screaming? God damn it, there is so much screaming. When they tell the passengers to turn their phones to airplane mode, there is another two minutes of screaming. And it happens three more times before any more plot happens. Two of them had just music, no actual audio of the screams, but you can feel the screams down in the cockles of your heart. It hurts.
There is just so much screaming, you guys. I’ve never felt so old before.
1/10
TECHNICAL
Jesus Christ, what do you expect? It’s made by YouTubers. No offense to most creators on the platform, there are some genuinely talented people using it, but Logan Paul is not one of them.
YouTubers can’t act. Chloe Bridges, who appears to be a real actor, stands out and even seems like a real person at points, but every single other person that screams on my screen is so fake and forced it almost makes me think it was meant to be a five minute YouTube video and not an eighty minute film. Maybe if I knew who these YouTubers were I could at least be like, “oh my god, it’s that person that I like,” but instead I’m more like, “if I ever see any of these faces again, I’m burning that whole website to the ground!”
Pictured: That guy from Adam Sandler films doesn't count as a real actor.
I’ve since checked out the two directors' demo reel, and they seem to be talented people. Maybe they thought this would be their big break? They only highlighted the visual effects elements and speed ramped slow motion tableaux from the film, because the rest of the film was a cacophony of ugly.
Did I mention all that god damn screaming?
2/10
FUN
The main problem with a bad comedy is that it’s very hard to be so bad that it’s good. If jokes aren’t funny, then they’re just weird and uncomfortable. I couldn’t even make a drinking game with this one, because it would only consist of, “the moment the film starts, down a bottle of 80 proof vodka and light yourself on fire”.
The film's charm comes entirely from prior knowledge of all of these people, which I do not have. It reminds me of the Seltzer and Friedberg parodies that plagued the 00s; it’s just scene after scene of, “Hey, you know this right?” only instead of movies, it’s people I don’t care about. There are so many cameos from memes and YouTubers but so few legitimate jokes. I smiled at one recurring joke that is legitimately funny, but it was like an embarrassed smile of, “oh, poor joke, you deserve to be in better company. I’m so sorry.”
Really, the most interesting thing about this film, is the fact that it was shot four years ago (which still doesn’t forgive Logan and Juanpa for acting like fourteen year olds who are one family reunion away from hitting on their cousins), so none of the references are even relevant. At one point they even have a “leave Britney alone” reference, which is so old, but it was the only one I remembered going viral.
Pictured: Just one of many dated references
The whole reason this film took so long to release was because of that whole Logan Paul suicide forest controversy. So they waited for it to all blow over and now we have an annoying film that's already badly dated.
DID I MENTION ALL THE GOD DAMN SCREAMING YET?
GET OFF MY LAWN!
1/10