View From the Top should have been a made-for-TV movie.
It is not that the film lacks stars or acting talent -- itboasts Gwyneth Paltrow, Christina Applegate, Candice Bergen, RobLowe and, of course, Mike Myers. It just feels like the studiothrew money at a cute idea that was a lot more difficult to make amovie about than a catchy trailer.
Small-town trailer park Donna (Paltrow) wants to get out and seethe world. She gets a job at the amazingly retro-tacky SierraAirlines, which flies local trips for gamblers and drunks, whereshe wears skin-tight synthetic material, huge earrings and a lot ofhairspray.
She meets a great guy (Mark Ruffalo), but unfortunately she andher new friend (Applegate) desire to move on to bigger and betterthings. They are accepted into the Royalty Airlines trainingcourse, led by Myers as a cross-eyed and embittered instructor.Myers is the best part of the movie - the humor we were promised inthe trailer -- but his part was far too small.
Also entertaining is the stewardess guru Bergen who tells Donnathat flying "Paris, first class, international" is her destiny, butthrough a mix-up, Donna ends up flying a small route in Cleveland,where she again runs into Ruffalo's character.
When Donna learns she has the opportunity to advance and becomethe international stewardess and Parisian tourist she has alwaysdreamt of becoming, she is forced to choose between her new dreamguy and the world.
The fashion atrocities committed by Paltrow's character aredefinitely the highlight of the movie. I found myself moreinterested in the variance of Donna's hair than the plot.
The scenes with Myers and Bergen steal the show -- they seemedto be better planned and better written than the fluff in between.There is a fight scene between Paltrow's and Applegate's charactersthat comes out of nowhere and is so unexpected that it isn't veryfunny.
I was also dismayed by the fact that some of the best partsshown in the previews are just extras during the closing credits,as if whoever was in charge of the editing could find no place forthem.
A little more organization than director Bruno Baretto andscreenwriter Eric Wald mustered could have made the movie ten timesbetter than it was. As is, I didn't feel it was worth my $7 andrecommend you wait to catch it on video, if at all.
