Sky Pirates |
  • Australia / USA • 1986 • 89m •   • Directed by: Colin Eggleston. • Starring: John Hargreaves, Meredith Phillips, Max Phipps, Bill Hunter, Simon Chilvers, Alex Scott, David Parker, Adrian Wright, Peter Cummins, Tommy Dysart, Arron Wayne Cull, Alex Menglet, Nigel Bradshaw. • Music by: Brian May.     Air force Lieutenant Harris starts for a flight to Boa Boa, on board Reverend Mitchell with a box containing a part of a top-secret extraterrestrial key. They get lost in a supernatural storm and find themselves after an emergency landing in kind of a Bermuda triangle, 5,000 miles off their course. Home again, no one believes Harris' story, and his crew suspiciously denies it too. Harris is thrown in jail, but manages to escape. Together with Mitchell's daughter he seeks the lost part of the key and its secret.
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Review:
My favourite of these Raider wannabes is Sky Pirates (1986), an Australian movie that bravely tries to match the thrills and spills of it's Hollywood counterparts on a fraction of their budget. You can't accuse the producers of lacking ambition.
The plot makes use of various New Age conspiracy theories concerning the Bermuda Triangle, the Philadelphia Experiment, and aliens visiting Earth in ancient times and assisting mankind's development. Aussie ace pilot Flight Lieutenant Harris (John Hargreaves) is transporting a top secret cargo in August 1945. However, when a crew member tries to sneak a look at what they're carrying, all hell breaks loose, as - in the film's best sequence - the plane plunges into another dimension, where past, present and future all intersect (a fact cleverly illustrated by having the radio operator pick up wireless traffic about the assassination of JFK, the first moon landing, and a Mayday call from the Titanic, plus Harris having a near miss with a modern-day jet fighter). The plane ditches in a sea full of half-sunken ships from various time periods, and the survivors catch a glimpse of Easter Island before being instantly transported back to their original location and rescued.
Back in Oz, Hargreaves finds his superior officer, Squadron Leader Savage, refuses to back his version of events, and is court-marshaled. Discovering that Savage is intent on recovering the cargo - part of a stone tablet left on Earth eons ago by alien visitors - and uniting it with the other pieces to gain godlike power, Hargreaves escapes from army custody and tries to foil Savage's scheme.
Compared to the average Hollywood studio picture, Sky Pirates was made on the cheap, but that's not say that money hasn't been spent: good use is made of vintage aircraft, there's some splendid location filming on the real Easter Island, and several large scale action set pieces. The best of these has Harris climbing out onto the wing of an airborne DC3 to repair an engine while under fire from a pursuing Mustang fighter, and a truck chase that is copied wholesale from Raiders while using some nice Mad Max visual flourishes.
Sky Pirates wears it's references with pride. The aforementioned truck chase may not be as spectacular as the one in Raiders, but it's just as enjoyable. There's also a fight in a sleazy tavern, but at Ayers Rock as opposed to Raiders' Tibet. And if you don't spot the Jaws homage, then shame on you. But before we start to accuse this film of being totally unoriginal, don't forget that every aspect of the Indiana Jones movies was openly taken from the cliffhanger serials of the 1930s and 40s, and Sky Pirates succeeds in capturing that same pulp feel.
There are some problems: the personal animosity displayed between Harris and Savage at the beginning of the film is never explained, and Savage's motives for suddenly trying to seize the tablet fragments - and his plans once he has them - are also not revealed. However, the most disappointing aspect of the movie is the way it peters out with a rushed and anti-climatic non-ending, which strongly suggests that the production ran out of time andor money. A great pity.
As for the cast, Hargreaves's performance seesaws between being wooden and extremely engaging, but ultimately he succeeds in making Harris a likable hero. Essentially, he is the movie, as the other characters are all functionary and underwritten. That said, Meredith Phillips has her moments as feisty sidekick Mitch, exactly the kind of girl you'd want to tag along while trying to save the world.
Review by misbegotten from the Internet Movie Database.
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