Iron Eagle (1986)

Iron Eagle is a hilariously awful fighter-pilot action picture aimed at 12-year-olds with a plot that could easily double as the backstory of a video game.  You could see it written in the instruction manual:

You are Doug Masters, ace fighter pilot and son of Col. Ted Masters, a decorated pilot and hero to his countr  But dear old Dad has been captured after his MiG was shot down while on a mission in the Middle East.  When the chips are down, and the government won’t help, it’s up to Doug to gather a team that includes Chappy, one of Dad’s old Air Force buddies, fly in and get him back out.  But the job won’t be easy.  It’ll take all your skills and coaching from Chappy to fly in and rescue Dad and bring him back to the good old U.S.A.!

That’s it.  That’s pretty much the whole movie.  It is literally as formulaic as that.  The only problem: It should have BEEN a video game.  See, in a game you can forgive the gaps in logic, such as the total access that military brats seem to have to secret government documents that are supposed to be classified and under heavy guard.  Or how Doug and his buddies are able to steal two MiGs and fly them from California to the Middle East without, apparently, ever showing up on anyone’s radar.  Or Doug’s inability to hit anything unless he has rock and roll playing on his portable Walkman.  Or the movie’s overtly obvious tactic of never actually naming the country that has taken Col. Ted hostage, but Libya.  It’s Libya.  The movie doesn’t say that but, it’s Libya.

As I say, the movie will appeal mostly to 12-year-old males.  The jets are cool and some of the music by Twisted Sister, Queen, Funkmeister George Clinton and even James Brown is pretty cool, though I might have been more attracted to the album than the movie that these songs are attached to.  And there’s some attempts to some of that Rambo energy going, but this movie is a washout – it’s all substance and no cake, a video game that scores no points, at least not with me.