Oh, gosh, so many h8rs for a film that doesn't aspire to be anything more than worth every penny of your $1.50 at the Redbox.You'd do yourself a favor to cut this The Asylum outing the break your IMDb and Amazon peers have denied.The preposterousness and cheesiness of this comic book melodrama are actually redeemed by some winning performances; colorful and creative, if not convincing special effects; and a cast totally committed to this project, no matter how ridiculous the plot thickens like flowing lava.The story: Some unclear natural disaster has created volcanic activity of such scale that it's essentially turned the West Coast into Mordor.As it happens, an airline (for some reason, just one airline, and not hundreds) is approaching L.A. at that exact time, and ends up flying straight into the volcano.It flies and flies and flies, for the entire 90-minute runtime, somehow, despite engine failure, pilot deaths, insane terrorists, low fuel, volcanic heat, flying lava balls and ash clouds so hot they turn beachgoers into piles of cinders.How will they survive? How can the volcano be stopped?You'll be surprised how much you'll care about those answers.The cast: Dean Cain got too fat to be Superman, so now he turns up in The Asylum roles Greg Evigan turns down to preserve his dignity. He's OK in this one as one of those stock-character passengers who happens to know how to fly a plane once the pilots are dead.Surprisingly endearing is a turn by Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, famous only as Freddy "Boom Boom" Washington on the '70s sitcom "Welcome Back, Kotter," as a grizzled air marshal. Somebody give this talented Hollywood veteran a cop series.Robin Givens shows up, characteristically devoid of any charm or personality, as a volcano expert who exists only to forward and describe the absurd pseudo-science of the film's main conceit.And as is true in pretty much every other The Asylum flick, the supporting cast and extras act their little nobody hearts out, as if this stupid DTV kerfuffle was "Terms of Endearment." The SFX: Most of the time, it looks like a CGI aircraft superimposed on a Renaissance painting of the Catholic interpretation of hell. But you can't say that's not doggone pretty to look at. Most of this film is the fire-orange hue you wish Crayola made a crayon of when you were an insane little kid.A couple of times, when a piece of lava hits the plane, or as the plane flies over vast magma fields, it looks really cool. Credit the editor as much as the SFX team for creating fine dramatic tension on the cheap.Other times, it looks like a cartoon. Like a "Bullwinkle" cartoon.The lowdown: Look, you watch a movie called "Airplane Vs. Volcano," you know It's from The Asylum, you can't fault the thing for wasting your time because it wasn't "Star Wars."Few production houses require viewers to leave their brains at the door as often as The Asylum. But when we do, we're occasionally charmed by the end product."Airplane Vs. Volcano" is one of those pearls in an otherwise slimy oyster bed.

I only watched this because I like Dean Cain. It started out pretty well, which surprised me since it is a SyFy movie. The scientific stuff is probably laughable but I don't know. Several stereotypes in this one. The colonel, the Arab who, while not a terrorist, tries to take over the plane with a broken booze bottle (aren't they all plastic now?) and attempts to throw Cain out of the plane, and the volcanologist who just happens to be on the plane on his way to join the monitoring team and is also a whiz at computers. The movie was okay until the last 30 minutes or so. Cain flies the airliner like it is a fighter for goodness sakes!! He uses a magma ball to knock off two damaged engines and avoids all sorts of debris, WRONG. I just can't go on with what else is so stupid about the end of this should have never in my opinion been made movie. Oh Dean WHY???

I knew this was an Asylum film from the start and have no complaints about quality - they are what they are. Two of my favorite things in one movie - terror in the air and a natural disaster, a can't miss! It lived up to my hopes. Brave passenger who can fly, specialist in the natural disaster on board, cute kid, black man with gravitas, nut job - all checked in. Pluses: Gravelly OIC shouting "Gentlemen, Let's Plow the Road!" Dean Cain being sweaty and stoic, lots of lava. Cons: What happened to Dean's family? How did I miss that? How did the flight attendant and Dean have time to fall in love?? Why did they include the obnoxious headache/mutiny dude? Overall, a nice way to spend a Saturday night doing laundry. catazure

I've come to expect the very worst from these Asylum films, complete with their rubbishy CGI graphics and lame, rip-off-anything-that-goes story lines. But I was completely overwhelmed by the simple fact that AIRPLANE VS VOLCANO manages to be an entertaining movie that held my attention the whole way through.Of course, this is still a B-movie, complete with the lame dialogue, the clichéd characters and the dodgy CGI work that we all know and love or hate, depending on your preference for trash; but it's a mighty fun one at that. The fast-paced storyline sees a down-on-his-luck Dean Cain trying to fly a plane that's trapped on autopilot above a ring of erupting volcanoes. Unlucky, huh? The effects here are wide-ranging and epic in approach, with lots of lava and fireballs and stuff exploding. None of it is remotely believable, but the effort was made, so I commend the film-makers for that. The characters are one-dimensional and the character list includes the expected stock figures: the evil Arab guy, the computer geek, and so on. The cast also contains a few other familiar faces from the past who have now fallen on tough times. But given the outlandish scenario, AIRPLANE VS VOLCANO delivers on its titular promise; everything you can imagine happens, and the action never lets up. It might be hokum, but it's enjoyable hokum all the same.