Soul Plane: Air dud

Soul Plane stays grounded in unfunny, offensive stereotypes

By Anthony Allison

Once upon a time, somewhere over a rainbow, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had a slogan: "MGM means great movies." Not anymore.

Soul Plane is the latest dismal offering (after Walking Tall and Agent Cody Banks 2) from the cheesy outfit that demeans the name of the glorious dream factory that Louis B. Mayer built eight decades ago.

Studio flacks want credulous audiences to believe that Jessy Terrero's first feature, about the maiden flight of an all-black airline Nashawn Wade (Kevin Hart) launches after winning $100 million in a lawsuit against another airline, is an African-American Airplane!

Don't be duped. That 1980 spoof of the Airport flicks flew on wings of inspired comedy. This humorless trash, scribbled by Bo Zenga and Chuck Wilson, is hopelessly grounded in stereotypes that are, at best, politically incorrect and, at worst, misogynist, mean-spirited and downright racist.

Snoop Dogg's stoner Capt. Antoine Mack, an acrophobe who learned to fly in prison on a flight simulator, directs offensive epithets at his African copilot (Godfrey C. Danchimah), who's named Gaeman (geddit, homophobes?)

Another gag aims for easy laughs at the expense of a character with beard and turban (could be Sikh, could be Muslim). And of course there's gay flight attendant Gary Anthony, camping it up with his scantily clad coworkers (Sofia Vergara and Angell Conwell).

Also on board are feisty security guard Mo'Nique, Nashawn's deadbeat cousin Method Man, love interest K.D. Aubert, restroom attendant D.L. Hughley and--to guarantee the film's certified dud status--Tom Arnold as the token white guy (named Hunkee) who's traveling with girlfriend Missi Pyle and rebellious kids Ryan Pinkston and Arielle Kebbel.

Nashawn Wade Airlines flies out of L.A.'s Malcolm X terminal--which makes you wonder what the '60s firebrand would make of it. Five decades after Brown vs. Board of Education, this is what the civil rights struggle has wrought? The equal right to produce Hollywood garbage?

Yeah, nowadays, MGM means godawful movies. And the old company motto, "ars gratia artis" (art for art's sake) is ripe for revision: excrementa gratia excrementibus.