An experimental plane conducts entire flights on auto-pilot in this disaster picture; the same could be said of Tom Greene and Scot Morison's script. When Genesys 1, the world's first fully automated jet-liner, experiences a system failure, Corbett Airlines CEO Ty Corbett (Winston Reckert) places full blame on inventor/chief engineer Gabriel Wingfield (John Pyper-Ferguson). Brilliant-but-unbalance Australian genius Wingfield doesn't take his firing well. Six months later, Corbett unveils Genesys 2 and hires Reece Robbins (Rachel Hayward) to helm the second trial run. Her ex-boyfriend, Pete "Birddog" Dumont (Craig Sheffer) questions her readiness and Genesys 2's viability, but the plane takes off with Corbett, Senator Caulfield (Edward Evanko) and the Senator's pregnant daughter-in-law on board. Meanwhile the reclusive Wingfield, whose only friend is Claire (Alexandria Mitchell), a neighbor's neglected child, prepares his revenge. Wingfield hacks into Robbins's laptop and gains access to the Genesys 2 mainframe, seizing control of the demonstration flight. He freezes the aircraft into a loop around Seattle and makes noises about ransom, but what Wingfield clearly wants is to demonstrate his superiority. He forces the plane into sudden
swoops that terrify the passengers and eat away at Robbins's self confidence. And there's no telling whether Wingfield is crazy enough to deliberately crash the flight or let it run out of fuel. Dumont races to find Wingfield, but he doesn't have much time to override Wingfield's computer tampering and return Genesys 2 to manual control. Fans of aerial disaster movies can squeal at the runaway plane's ups and downs, but this formulaic action movie offers little else to viewers — certainly not fully developed characters or surprising plot twists. --Robert Pardi
