bbjonw I first watched this film shortly after it came out. I remembered it as being 'memorable', without really remembering too much about the characters or the plot.Watching it again now, I have to say I really enjoyed it.OK, you have to suspend some disbelief on the plane-flying front - there have obviously been quite a few reviews by critics with pilot's licenses (no doubt attracted by the title) and certainly there are a lot of highly unlikely flying technicalities to be overlooked. However - this film is really a sort of Lovecraftian sci-fi chiller, and let's face it - how many such films would work if they had to be technically accurate? In reality in this case, the girl would never even have got to hire the plane, let alone get into trouble in it.The cast are a uniformly pretty unpleasant and dim bunch, and it's nice to see them getting knocked off one by one, but I wouldn't say they were bad actors. I could well imagine that if you took a group of college kids and put them in a 'stress' situation like this for real, you would see exactly the sort of mental and social breakdown portrayed here. For the most part the script actually treads a well-chosen line between teenage banality and the needs of the plot.There are a few corny bits in the dialogue between the 'teenagers', and there is a strong temptation to keep saying to the screen 'so maybe you should fly the plane now?' but this is really the practical result of filming a minimal number of actors in the confines of a 6-seater cabin - if the pilot had to sit in front of the controls facing forward the whole time, she would only have a bit part in the movie! The plot has enough twists and turns to keep you guessing, and the sky monster is neatly explained. I cannot imagine why some reviewers have slated its 'realism' when (as explained by the plot) it isn't quite 'real' anyway and so doesn't have to conform to a scientifically-viable form. OK, the CGI isn't brilliant, but at DVD quality you can't see too much detail, and it's really all about the 'lost in the dark' atmosphere rather than the monster effects.The filming is - within the limits of the budget and the CGI - good and imaginative. No, it isn't Avatar, but the director does a good job with what he's got. I don't understand reviewers who continually criticise the filming standards of low-budget monster movies. You have to show the monster eventually, and no money = rubber monster. If they can't understand that, they shouldn't bother watching and reviewing such films.The ending has a nice twist which neatly ties everything together, but I think the immensity of the concept behind the ending - and the great suspension of incredulity necessary to appreciate it - left a lot of reviewers with a bad taste in their mouths. I think most reviewers just wanted the entire cast to die horribly, and gave the movie a low score when it finally appeared they might not have....If you enjoy Lovecraftian films, and can suspend some disbelief for 90 minutes, 'Altutude' is an enjoyable Friday night's viewing.

Leofwine_draca ALTITUDE is a low rent Canadian B-movie set entirely in a single location: a small plane occupied by five of the most annoying teenage characters you'll see on film. The general purpose of the plot sees their flight interrupted by increasingly bizarre events that seem to be linked to a tragedy from the past. There's a TWILIGHT ZONE feel to the story as the characters are tested to the limit by their extreme situation.Sadly none of this is believable as the film is saddled with sub-par special effects and some very poor acting. The dialogue is also pretty bad, with every single character coming across as unlikeable, so it's one of those ones where I was wishing for their death en masse. It has to be said that the reveal is also rather unbelievable, even with the explicitly Lovecraftian addition to the story which I rather enjoyed. The whole "psychic trauma" angle was taken from previous productions so there's nothing really new here, it's just a twist on an old premise.

michaeldartnell i incidentally watched this movie this morning as it was the first channel that came up on my foxtel.all and all, yes it is a pretty crappy premise that is turning the twilight zone airplane story into a modern day movie for teens.I also didn't really care much for the main character as he was weird awkward character (or other characters all of which were stereotypes.) But. for some weird reason I still felt the need to watch all of this movie (possibly because I'm mowing the lawn after it)But usually if I'm not liking a movie at least a little bit i change the channel.Plus the ending had that inclusive time paradox kinda feel.Initially i was going to give this a 6, but i think a modest 5 is what this movie is worth. (i would give it 5.5 if i could)

Rob van Opzeeland So what do we have here? Well, we have a perfect example of the worst type of movie. Some bad movies are so bad that they're fun to watch. Some bad movies have elements that make you appreciate them more than they deserve. And then there's movies like this, that are just a complete waste of your time.The movie starts out as a sort of teen movie, with the classic stereotypes in place. The sports hero who's a total bastard, the artistic boy, the slutty girlfriend of the jock who secretly has got this thing going on with the artistic boy. Annoying, but wait, let's turn to the main attractions. The female lead who's a pilot, and whose mother (also a pilot) died in a plane-crash, and her comic book reading nerdy boyfriend who's the only survivor of her mother's final flight. At this point you seriously should want to punch the writers.After a boring first twenty minutes or so, the movie turns into a small disaster story, about a malfunctioning plane. And to top it all of the final half an hour is devoted to turning this wreck of a movie into a implausible horror story inspired by Twelve Monkeys and HP Lovecraft.All of this could have worked out okay with proper pacing, believable dialogues, and some b quality acting. Unfortunately the plot is neither here nor there most of the time, all actors were borrowed from a soft-drink commercial, and their characters are about as 3-dimensional as a complementary magazine on a Ryanair flight.There was simply no point at which I cared about anything going on. One by one characters fight with each other completely at random. The female lead behaves as a control freak who has no control over anything, neither the plane (although she apparently trained to be a pilot), nor her friends, if you could call any of her passengers friends. If any of my friends behaved like these morons for only one minute I'd ditch them forever. But then again the female lead could be excused to have friends like this, because she is a total bitch herself. After watching them for more than half an hour you just wish the plane crashes, and kills all of them, so you can be spared from having to listen to any more of their annoying yapping.Don't get me wrong. I like B movies, and I like implausible stories, as long as they're made with some conviction. But this entire movie reeks of laziness. Lazy acting, lazy editing, lazy writing, all contributing to this loveless attitude of "that'll do". I'd like to take this opportunity to say no. It won't do. Stop wasting money and resources that could be spent on filmmakers and actors that are actually prepared to make an effort.