In 1997 we saw Helen Hunt take to the screen in As Good as it Gets, Robert Carlyle and Tom Wilkinson take their clothes off in The Full Monty and the Titanic take, well, all the awards. A great year for film one might say. However, if the Taoist philosophy of “yin and yang” has taught us anything then it’s that for every good film there is a bad one [? - ed.], enter Con Air.

Simon West’s action-thriller saw Nicolas Cage as protagonist Cameron Poe. Imprisoned for eight years after using ‘excessive force’ against his then pregnant wife’s attacker, Poe is offered parole and the opportunity to finally meet his daughter. So far so good. However, Poe’s dream to be re-united with his daughter is threatened when ‘Pinball’ Parker, played by none other than comedian Dave Chapelle, starts a riot on the plane escorting the prisoners to Alabama. For the next hour or so we are presented with a series of incomprehensible events ultimately ending with the plane crashing in the heart of Las Vegas, only for Poe to escape unharmed and able to retrieve from the wreckage the teddy he had bought for his daughter. The film’s redeeming feature is that is does not take itself seriously, but with a cast that includes John Cusack, John Malkovich and Steve Buscemi I was hoping for a lot better.

Director Simon West said last year that a sequel was one of his “dream projects” and that as he was about to start work with Cage on bank robber movie Medallion he was “going to put a bug in his ear about it.” “If the two of us want to do it,” he continued, “we’ll go after the others.” Now Cusack has commented in an interview that he’d be up for it. So while nothing is firmed up, getting Cage to agree would surely be one of the easiest gigs ever. (As a side note, Cage and Cusack recently worked together on horror-thriller On Frozen Ground).

Would you watch a Con Air sequel? What would you like to see happen in it?

Source: Crave, BBC