An obnoxious young brat is being flown home in her Dad's private Boeing 727 when a lightning strike cripple the aircraft. cue said brat saving the day. Completely ridiculous, but strangely watchable in an annoying way. Elisha Cuthbert's character seems to be a younger version of Kim Bauer, the part she played in '24'.

Nicole Stone (Elisha Cuthbert) is a bratty 13 year old who got kicked out of another private school to everyone's frustration. Her father Raymond (Joe Mantegna) is a computer tycoon. She's being flown back on the company 727 jet. A lightning strike hits the plane. The crew is electrocuted and explosive decompression knock everybody out. The autopilot turns on. Nicole wakes up to find a near impossible situation.

There are lots of ridiculous technical ideas going on here. It puts 'Executive Decision' to shame. To be fair, the movie is smart enough to reference 'Airport 1975'. The special effects are on the cheap side and so is most the production. The most interesting part is Elisha Cuthbert as a child actress. The rest is a weak action thriller.

I opted to sit down to watch the 1999 movie "Airspeed", despite of the fairly low rating that the movie had managed to acquire here on IMDb. I read the movie's synopsis and I must admit that I was intrigued. And of course, with it being a movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I needed little persuasion to sit down to watch this movie.

Now, I will say that writers Richard Goudreau and Roc LaFortune actually managed to put together an enjoyable and entertaining script and storyline. Sure, it was predictable and sort of far fetched, but at the same time there was just something very enjoyable and watchable about the movie. Perhaps "Airspeed" is one of those guilty pleasure movies for some people.

I actually was enjoying the story and the movie as a whole. Director Robert Tinnell provided sufficient entertainment value with this movie, and I am a little bit at a loss here as to why the movie has raked in such a low rating. I suppose lots of people are above enjoying TV movies?

The acting in the movie was actually good. Sure, it wasn't Academy award-winning performances, but I will say that the actors and actresses in the movie were definitely putting on good performances and delivered believable performances. Especially Elisha Cuthbert (playing Nicole) and Charles Edwin Powell (playing Jeff),they really carried the movie with their individual performances.

While "Airspeed" was not making use of high end CGI for impressive edge-of-the-seat scenes in midair with the accident, the movie's special effects crew actually managed to make use of simplistic, yet functional and working, effects that served the movie well enough and did what they were supposed to do.

"Airspeed" provided a good combination of drama, thrills and action actually to make it an enjoyable all-round movie for me. And this 1999 movie is actually one that I would recommend you take the time to watch.

My rating of "Airspeed" lands - pardon the pun - on a six out of ten stars.