Island in the Sky had a promising premise, with a crew of aviators getting stranded in the Canadian wilderness. I'm a fan of survival thrillers and had hopes it would be interesting. However, flawed execution undermined the film as a whole.
The main problem is that the film repeatedly undermines its sense of tension, robbing the plot of suspense. For example, in the opening moments before the plane crashes, the film uses a narrator to tell us what the Duke and the rest of his crew are thinking. A better approach would have been just to let the actors' facial expressions tell the story.
Furthermore, the film breaks away from the stranded fliers in order to focus on their fellow aviators and their search for the crash. These scenes at times seem to come from a different movie, with some sequences played for laughs.
That said, the film has some well done scenes, particularly one where a man is dying in snow. The Duke gives his usual commanding performance, which keeps things from getting too bad. Still, the film is ultimately a substandard survival thriller.
The main problem is that the film repeatedly undermines its sense of tension, robbing the plot of suspense. For example, in the opening moments before the plane crashes, the film uses a narrator to tell us what the Duke and the rest of his crew are thinking. A better approach would have been just to let the actors' facial expressions tell the story.
Furthermore, the film breaks away from the stranded fliers in order to focus on their fellow aviators and their search for the crash. These scenes at times seem to come from a different movie, with some sequences played for laughs.
That said, the film has some well done scenes, particularly one where a man is dying in snow. The Duke gives his usual commanding performance, which keeps things from getting too bad. Still, the film is ultimately a substandard survival thriller.