Turbulent ‘Flightplan’ is a dramatic ride

After Sept. 11, 2001, anything to do with an airplane tends to rattle

one’s nerves, especially in light of last week’s real drama over Los

Angeles International Airport. Thus the thriller “Flightplan” plays

on our fears effectively, thanks to star Jodie Foster and director

Robert Schwentke.

Like her role in 2002’s “Panic Room,” Foster again plays a mother

trying to protect her daughter from harm. Only this time, the enemy

is unseen and possibly even nonexistent.

Kyle Pratt (Foster) is a professional woman working in Berlin.

With the sudden death of her husband, she and 6-year-old daughter,

Julia, are returning to New York and taking his body with them. Their

trip is aboard a massive, state-of-the-art jet Kyle helped design.

Profoundly affected by their loss, Kyle has visions of her dead

husband, and Julia is afraid of even going out onto the street. So it

is very puzzling when, three hours into the flight, Julia is nowhere

to be found.

Kyle is tenacious and creative in her efforts to rouse the dubious

flight crew and captain (Sean Bean) into searching every inch of the

plane for her daughter. She doesn’t care if she disrupts, antagonizes

or endangers the other 400 passengers on board -- all she wants is to

find Julia.

Ultimately, the air marshal (Peter Saarsgard) must restrain her

and tells Kyle she will be arrested upon landing. Her credibility and

mental state come into question. The other passengers are now hostile

toward her and even each other.

Watching “Flightplan” is like a being on a very turbulent flight

-- it captures that feeling of claustrophobia and maneuvers our

reactions to Kyle from sympathy to fear, skepticism to anger, and

back to sympathy again. You’ll get caught up in the drama, even

though the plot does not completely satisfy all of your questions.

Foster gives another superbly convincing performance, but it is

Saarsgard with his sleepy-eyed deadpan who pulls off the unthinkable

by hijacking all his scenes.

* SUSANNE PEREZ lives in Costa Mesa and is an executive assistant

for a financial services company.

Tim Burton’s new film? Of corpse!

Only Tim Burton could come up with “Corpse Bride,” a film so

strange and yet so traditional.

He uses old-fashioned, stop-motion animation with puppets that are

extreme caricatures of real people. In a vaguely Olde English

setting, he creates a weird world of Victorian manners where the dead

and the living interact in a raucous Dance Macabre.

Johnny Depp voices Victor, who is about to enter a marriage

arranged by his father, a successful fishmonger. His future wife is

the daughter of upper crust parents who have a large estate, but no

money left from their family fortune. Neither of them wants this

forced union. But when they finally meet the day before the wedding,

love blooms.

Practicing his wedding vows in the forest, Victor inadvertently

chants a spell that raises a young woman from the dead and makes her

his unintended Corpse Bride. Helena Bonham Carter voices the once

lovely and still alluring corpse who is now the awkward bride of a

living man.

Victor is whisked into the realm of the newly deceased, who all

seem to party hard in the underworld. Whimsical musical numbers are

reminiscent of “Beauty and the Beast” on LSD. In contrast to the drab

gray world of the living, the morbid revelry features vibrant colors,

dancing skeletons and vivid images from another state of mind.

This bizarre premise sounds much too peculiar to be family fare.

But Burton weaves this quirky tale with classic themes of loyalty and

lost love. He creates a heartfelt romance tinged with just enough

melancholy to remind us how love sometimes unfolds in the real world.

Too outrageous to be taken seriously, this offbeat offering amuses

and entertains in a most unusual way.

* JOHN DEPKO is a Costa Mesa resident and a senior investigator

for the Orange County public defender’s office.