Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land

Like a souped-up Airport episode, made for TV and cut by 40 minutes for cinema release, this populates the world's first hypersonic jet on its maiden flight with the usual selection of stereotypes, and - thanks to the dastardly designs of several greedy opportunists - plunges them out of the atmosphere into orbit. Then the problems really begin as the cast struggle hopelessly with trite script and flaccid direction. Through a totally unconvincing series of manoeuvres - like an advert for NASA - most of these cardboard characters make it back to Earth; that an audience might survive unscathed is far less likely.