Airplane! (1980)

Airplane! is one of those movies beloved by people who came of age when it was released, and for some reason remains a staple of popular culture despite being utterly mediocre. Perhaps what is most significant about this movie is that it is the original parody movie. Without Airplane! we would not have such titles as Scary Movie or Vampires Suck. This one film alone is responsible for almost three decades worth of increasingly pungent garbage. All of the tropes found throughout this subgenre can be found here; off-color race-related humor, big breasts, and that one guy that just says random crap. There is just something very off-putting and plain unfunny about this movie. While it does not reach the levels of sheer stupidity achieved by its spiritual successors, I did feel somewhat insulted by this movie. Are we really expected to find humor in these ludicrous scenarios?  I think what I hate most about this movie is not so much the movie itself, but rather just how loved it is by people. There are plenty of movies I love out of sheer nostalgia, such as the Super Mario Bros. movie, but I will never pretend that they are good movies, or even important ones, yet fans of Airplane! (and this category can be expanded to fans of Animal House and other such films I have yet to punish myself by watching) will contend that this is a great movie, an important classic that everyone should see. This is not even a bad movie, it is just mediocre, mediocre in a way that has you saying to yourself after the credits roll, "Well, that was pretty dull". I have a friend who loved to make his own parody movies in high school, zero budget kind of stuff, and even those are more entertaining and less mediocre than Airplane! All I ask is that the public allow this to fade into obscurity like it deserves to.