| 100 |
Entertainment Weekly
Harrison Ford as the President of the United States is such a perfect piece of casting that it's at once a fantasy and a joke: The joke is how perfect the fantasy is. [25 Jul 1997, p. 48]
|
| 100 |
Los Angeles Times
At once vigorous and old-fashioned, a piece of expertly crafted entertainment that gets the job done with skill and panache. [25 July 1997]
|
| 100 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Dares to present a flat-out heroic president, without the safety net of irony. It succeeds.
|
| 90 |
Washington Post
Ford makes such a dynamic president in Air Force One, you may find yourself favorably weighing his odds in Iowa and New Hampshire.
|
| 88 |
Rolling Stone
Director Wolfgang Petersen puts such a fresh spin on the familiar that it all works like gangbusters.
|
| 80 |
Variety
Viewers looking for old-fashioned movie thrills as a change of pace from the glut of alien and digital-oriented features might paradoxically enjoy the feeling of being back on terra firma with this airborne adventure.
|
| 80 |
The New York Times
A meat-and-potatoes American thriller that means business all around the world.
|
| 80 |
Empire
Ian Freer
Fulfils all its early promise, delivering a well oiled, no-nonsense, supremely entertaining crowd pleaser.
|
| 80 |
Washington Post
Takes its absurd premise and keeps itself narrowly focused, pushing its heroic cast through obstacle after obstacle.
|
| 75 |
USA Today
Viscerally juicy....The movie is effectively cast. [25 July 1997, p.D2]
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Examiner
Think of this as "Die Hard" in a suit, with an election coming up.
|
| 70 |
Time
Good--sometimes witty—suspense. [28 Jul 1997, p. 69]
|
| 67 |
Austin Chronicle
Peterson's film is a huge, loud beast of a film, filled with gunfire, explosions, and not a few tears. It's all grounded, however, in Ford's gritted-teeth performance as President Marshall.
|
| 63 |
Chicago Sun-Times
A fairly competent recycling of familiar ingredients, given an additional interest because of Harrison Ford's personal appeal.
|
| 63 |
ReelViews
Petersen ratchets the tension up to a level where the viewer is likely to forget the imbecilic plot contrivances that have gotten the situation to this point, and just enjoy the action and adventure.
|
| 60 |
The New Republic
A pretty good thriller for the first forty minutes or so. [25 Aug 1997, p. 24]
|
| 60 |
LA Weekly
The first 20 minutes of Wolfgang Petersen’s new action adventure, Air Force One, are so thrillingly choreographed (and so very, very loud), it’s all the more disappointing that the balance of the movie tends to move less like a Stealth bomber and more like a jalopy — jerking fitfully from plot hole to plot hole, only occasionally finding momentum.
|
| 50 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Christopher Harris
The film's biggest flaw -- aside from the lapses of credibility, which are almost obligatory in escapist summer movies -- is that it flies on and on until its power to hold us simply peters out.
|
| 50 |
TV Guide
Trapped uncomfortably between its higher aspirations and the demands of genre, this picture never quite gets its bearings, but it's still a solid ride.
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
The movie wastes a good opportunity to look at important questions, such as who's responsible for American policy when the president is busy killing terrorists.
|
| 40 |
Newsweek
Howard Fineman
An over-the-top thriller, too loosely tethered to reality to be a lesson about anything other than the limits of popcorn consumption.
|
| 30 |
The New Yorker
Terrence Rafferty
The picture's attempt to satisfy the aggressive fantasies of a graying white-male audience is weirdly fascinating. It's something you don't see every day: a geriatric comic book.
|
| 20 |
Chicago Reader
Wolfgang Petersen and writer Andrew Marlowe, apparently afraid to really make fun of any American icons, challenge us to take the story straight no matter what, but the only thing this ponderous movie has going for it is its unintentional humor.
|
| 10 |
Slate
Sarah Kerr
There's not a single thing about Air Force One to recommend, except perhaps the controlled performance of Glenn Close, who does remarkably well as the recipient of several phone calls from the sky.
|
| 0 |
Salon.com
If you've ever sat in a jet waiting on the runway, feeling it lumbering along in place and then bucking and shaking when it's cleared for take-off, you know what it's like to sit through Air Force One.
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