The movie is another jetliner epic with tough hero Charlton Heston . A Boeing commercial airline (the 'Global Airways' plane used in the movie was a World Airways Boeing 707 , N374WA) is hijacked . Commandant Charlton Heston along with crew and flight attendant (Ivette Mimieux ) taking on a dangerous bomber . The film is detailing hectic flighty hijacked by a dangerous terrorist and passengers' relationship . All clichéd and stock characters with regurgitation of all usual stereotypical situations from disaster films such as the musician , the pregnant girl (Mariette Hartley) , a nervous , crazed vet Vietnam (James Brolin), the senator (Walter Pidgeon) and his son (Nicholas Hammond). Taking place on fateful storm and freeze skies and the airplane heading to Russia . If you've seen the original ¨ Airport ¨ (George Seaton ) , the daddy of them all , you've seen them all , in fact , the terrorist character is likeness to Airport's Van Heflin.

The picture contains thriller , suspense , drama , moderated tension and is quite entertaining although with some flaws and gaps . Filmed at the height of the disaster genre from the 7os , this entry in the spectacular series profits of a strong acting by Charlton Heston , bringing conviction to character , he also starred a similar role at ¨ Airport 1975 ¨ (Jack Smight) . Look quickly to Claude Akins, John Hillerman , Jeanne Crain , among others , though doesn't appear the classic character Patroni (George Kennedy) , a saga usual . The motion picture was professionally directed by John Guillermin , habitual of disaster films (Towering inferno, King Kong , Kong lives) and airplane movies (Blue Max ) . The film is classified ¨parents guide¨ for a certain violence . It's an inoffensive diversion but is sometimes tediously unspooled . The film will appeal to Charlton Heston fans and disaster genre enthusiasts.

Simply put, I enjoyed this 1972 disaster film release even some 50 plus years after its original release. I am a senior citizen so all the film stars were familiar to me and the air disaster plot was reminiscent of the 1970's other disaster films with a cast of past their prime film stars.

What I kept asking myself while watching this film was why isn't air travel as roomy and easy to accomplish today as it was back in the 1970's even with the opportunity for skyjackers? I appreciate that 9/11 can never happen again and robust security measures must be taken and is todays norm, but this film reminds us all of a simpler time when air travel could be a real adventure and enjoyable.

This film explores the personal lives of each of the main characters and how they deal with a stressor such as being in the middle of a skyjacking with a bomb aboard their plane.

I enjoyed watching Skyjaclked and God willing I will most likely want to watch it again if I am still alive in the next few dceades. I give it an admirable and deserving 7 out of 10 IMDb rating.

I was really surprised by this film, one, I had never actually seen it, and two, it was well worth seeing.

I did, however, find it very frustrating. Not through the plot or the acting or anything like that, but it was full of actors and actresses, whose faces were familiar to me, I spent about half the film wondering who had been in what, I couldnt wait to get on here and find out.

Charlton Heston was his always accomplished self, no more and no less, and he is always very good. James Brolin played a military section 8 well indeed, or at least I assume that is a way in which a section 8 would be, not like Klinger in M*A*S*H!

All together a very good film, well worth watching, and in truth probably suffered unfairly against the films of the day, The Godfather and The French Connection to name but two.

Not necessarily one for the collection, but worth seeing all the same.

If only all we had to fear today were hijackers.

As any film about an airplane made before 9/11, Skyjacked is badly dated but it's a real kick.

The plane wasn't full, first class was nearly empty - when was the last time anyone saw that? People entered and left the cockpit as though it was the Holiday Inn.

There was both a bomb and gun on board inside a carry-on satchel.

None of the carry-on baggage was screened.

People were smoking.

Roosevelt Grier could fit in a seat.

The story itself concerns a soldier from Crazytown (James Brolin) who hijacks the plane to take him to Moscow where he expects some sort of decoration for his service. Charlton Heston is the pilot. There are three people in the cockpit, which is a practice I recommend for all airlines now that a pilot left one cockpit and couldn't get back in.

Yvette Mimeux and Leslie Uggams are two of the flight attendants; Mimeux had a hot romance with the married pilot and is now engaged to the copilot.

Mariette Hartley plays a woman about to give birth.

Susan Dey is a hippie and a good suspect for leaving lipstick notes on the bathroom mirror.

It's a typical airplane story. There were some very exciting moments, particularly when the plane attempted to land in Alaska. There were some dumb moments: why Heston had to suggest the passengers deplane -- he was in the cockpit with James Brolin - the flight attendants, one would have thought, could have come up with that themselves. He also had to tell Yvette Mimiuex in code to deploy the chute and get the passengers out. Again, they couldn't have figured that out? Some parts of this were quite entertaining, and it's certainly worth seeing to look at old airline procedures. Flying was a lot simpler. And I wonder if it's any safer now.

Lots of familiar TV faces from the '70s and '80s besides those mentioned: Nicholas Hammond, who is still working, the late Claude Akins, Ken Swofford, now retired; the late Ross Elliott, Newhart's John Fiedler, and Magnum's John Hillerman, now retired. And two stars of the classic era of films: Walter Pidgeon, 75 then, and Jeanne Crain in her last film. If anyone is wondering, Jeanne Crain at 47 was still beautiful.

Had this been made by Universal Studios instead of MGM, they might well have called it AIRPORT '72, so closely does it follow the template of that popular disaster movie series; it even casts Charlton Heston as a pilot two years prior to his playing a similar role in AIRPORT 1975. The film introduces us to the personal lives of several passengers, including a U.S. Senator (Walter Pidgeon), a jazz cellist (football legend Roosevelt Grier), a smart-mouthed teenage girl (Susan Dey from The Partridge Family), and a very pregnant lady (Mariette Hartley, who used to do those cute Polaroid commercials with James Garner)who probably shouldn't be flying to begin with at this late stage. There's also an unusually twitchy Vietnam vet on board (hammily played by James Brolin) which should remove all doubt as to who is leaving scary notes on the bathroom mirror and threatening to blow up the plane if his demand to be flown to Moscow isn't met. Yvette Mimieux and Leslie Uggams appear as two of the best-looking flight attendants in aviation history (they were called stewardesses back then, but then again that was a time when you could also smoke openly on a commercial airplane.) TV's Claude Akins shows up in the control tower, essentially playing George Kennedy. This sounds pretty ridiculous, and in some ways it is, but director John Guillermin (The Blue Max, The Towering Inferno) keeps up a brisk pace and makes this quite watchable, for what it is.

"Skyjacked" is an okay, if somewhat dated, watch. It's not much of a whodunnit because anyone who is paying attention can figure out who the villain is in about ten minutes. That doesn't really matter because the movie is pretty suspenseful most of the way through. "Skyjacked" does run out of gas towards the end but it's not a deal breaker. The movie is a little dated. It has a few too many flashbacks but that was not uncommon is the early 1970s. The cover of the DVD of "Skyjacked" that I own tried selling the movie as a "camp classic". This movie may be a little corny at times but it is not campy. For the most part, "Skyjacked" is a well made, exciting movie.

This review contains all elements of the (ha, ha) plot, so proceed accordingly.

Movie is a subpar entry in the glory days of the disaster movie. I saw all of them and know their casts by heart; if an Oscar winnner was in peril, I was in the audience.

This is not as laughably bad as "The Concorde - Airport '79" and certainly not as much fun as "Airport '77". Cast is a curious mix of screen vets (Heston, Crain, Pigeon), TV actors (Brolin, Dey, Akins and Hartley) and a football player (Grier) in for good measure.

Movie begins with a Mystery Person buying lipstick in the airport gift shop. Soon after, Jeanne Crain is seen applying lipstick. If anyone thinks there is the slightest chance that she is responsible for the peril the passengers will endure, then you need to see more movies. With that gimmick in place, the movie then does not tip its hand anymore until the actual culprit is revealed. Standard flashbacks try to explain why this mad bomber is aboard. In addition to that misfortune, Mariette Hartley is heavily pregnant (three guesses how that concludes), Crain's husband forgot to mail their flight insurance, and there is a mid-air collision with a smaller aircraft. Oh, and its raining too. All the characters seem to know one another by name, even though that familiarity is never established.

The cast goes from horrible (Brolin, who chews on all available scenery) to wooden (Chuck Heston, who coaxes real sympathy with the line "My foot's asleep"!) to supremely beautiful (Yvette Mimieux is a welcome sight as a the most beautiful stewardess who ever lived). Mimieux is a godess of the silver screen and is worth seeing anywhere, anytime.

The only other thing to recommend is the glance and remark given by Leslie Uggams as she departs the plane.

Commercial airliner piloted by Charlton Heston is hijacked by someone claiming to have a bomb. Whether you consider it a knockoff of Airport or not, it's very much in the same vein as that film and its sequels. I see IMDb gives away the identity of the hijacker in their summary which is weird since the first 40 minutes of the movie is about that mystery. No spoilers here though.

Full of the stereotypical cast you might expect from an Airport movie: the pilot and stewardess who used to have a thing (Charlton Heston, Yvette Mimieux), aging stars (Walter Pidgeon, Jeanne Crain), up-and-coming youngsters (Susan Dey and future Spider-Man Nicholas Hammond), professional athlete (Rosie Greer), pregnant lady (Mariette Hartley), and a troubled soldier (James Brolin). The tension aboard the plane is pretty good but the dated flashback sequences are silly. Not bad of its type. First 45 minutes or so is best. If you like the Airport movies you'll surely like this.

Routine airline flight, piloted by none other than Charlton Heston, is beset with hijack warnings via notes left on the lavatory mirror. Could the psycho-on-board be musician Roosevelt "Rosie" Grier? Sweaty soldier James Brolin? Hippie Susan Dey or boy toy Nicholas Hammond? What about distraught stewardess Yvette Mimieux--has she cracked under pressure? Genre disaster flick slipped into theaters in between 1970's "Airport" and its many sequels, and actually was quite a hit at the box-office (but in this era, what Charlton Heston movie wasn't?). Unfortunately, once all is revealed--in rather anticlimactic fashion--the last reel is extremely dire. Still, for the first three-quarters of its length, "Skyjacked" provides just the kind of silly thrills you'd expect from a movie with that title and cast. Speaking of titles, "Skyjacked" was RE-TITLED "Sky Terror" once it premiered on network television. No sense frightening anyone into thinking this might be a documentary. ** from ****

"Skyjacked," one of many "air disaster" films from "The High and the Mighty" to "Airport", is one of the best in the genre. Featuring a star-studded cast headed by Charlton Heston (as the pilot, of course) and Yvette Mimieux (head stewardess), it's a fast-paced, efficient study in suspense. Basically a story involving the attempted hijacking of a commercial airplane, it focuses on a small group of first class passengers who provide both the drama and occasional (intended) humor. Among them are a middle-aged couple (Ross Elliot and Jeanne Crain) worried about yet another job transfer, a senator and his son (Walter Pidgeon and Nicholas Hammond) a "hippie girl" (Susan Dey, on leave from "The Partridge Family" in her screen debut), a jazz musician (former football great Rosey Grier) and of course, a pregnant woman (Mariette Hartley), who is due any minute (apparently, the nun missed this flight). Also aboard is a young sergeant (James Brolin, who fit this in between seasons of "Marcus Welby MD). Last, but not least is Leslie Uggams making her film debut, as an assistant stewardess.

Despite the occasionally unintentionally funny dialogue and predictable situations which, let's face it, go with the territory, the film has enough action and melodrama to be consistently entertaining. The cast give it their all. Far more interesting than the love triangle between Heston, Mimeux and co-pilot Mike Henry (which is established in a few ludicrous, but mercifully short flashbacks) are the performances of those who play the passengers. Crain, as lovely as ever, (in her first film in five years,and her last) gets to assist in the delivery of Hartley's baby,(neither she, nor ''Co Midwife'' Mimieux can sing, and Grier won't turn his guitar loose, so we are spared an in-flight, improvised ballad) as well as a chance to attack the villain. Pidgeon doesn't have to say much to give his character authority, Hartley is charming, and Susan Dey is both natural and appealing. As for Grier, he displays a genial screen presence while Brolin even evokes a bit of viewer sympathy.

"Skyjacked" was a big hit when it was first released and got a big audience rating when it was shown on television as "Sky Terror". The photography is excellent, the music by Perry Botkin, Jr. ("Nadia's Theme") is unobtrusively effective, and the main theme is beautiful. Although "Airport 1975" was waiting in the wings, so to speak, "Skyjacked" holds it's own. It will be released this June on DVD in it's original Panavision aspect ratio. I for one, can't wait!

It's really amazing that people like to fly today considering all the air disaster films Hollywood has made over the years. There was a trickle during the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s (with such films as "Five Came Back" and "Zero Hour!" and "The High and the Mighty"). However, in the 1970s, it became an absolute phenomenon. Following "Airport" (1970), there were a flood of sequels as well as this film, "Skyjacked". It's really a wonder that ANYONE flew after seeing these films! "Skyjacked" is interesting in that Charlton Heston starred as the pilot in this one...and was also a pilot in "Airport 75". He does not, however, play the same character (thank goodness!).

The film begins with a star-studded cast of passengers boarding an airplane. However, shortly after the plane leaves the airport, one of the passengers reports that they found something interesting in the restroom--a message written in lipstick on the mirror that says that there is a bomb planted aboard. To make it seem like it's NOT a crank, the person who left the message also left a detonator for the staff to find! Shortly after, one of the flight attendants finds a message on her cart instructing that the plane must change course to anchorage NOW or else! What's to happen to the plane and the innocent people and who is the hijacker--if there is one? Tune in and see.

I was surprised by this one. Although I hated the sequels to "Airport", "Skyjacked" actually works quite well and is a tense little thriller. Now I am not saying it is a great film--the flashback subplot seemed totally unnecessary and dumb. Plus, the childbirth scene on the plane made me laugh, as the kid looked about a month old AND came out 100% clean! Sorry to say, it really doesn't work that way! By the way, if you care the 'Russian' fighter planes are actually American F-100s. You cannot blame the film company, as it wasn't like they could borrow some Soviet MiG fighters for the production!

This old-fashioned disaster film is not bad, despite a few slips into soapy silliness (the flashbacks). Charlton Heston is commanding as always (when he says "Nobody dies on my airplane!", you believe it), and there is even a little Agatha Christie-type mystery in the beginning, concerning the identity of the mad hijacker. (**1/2)

Somewhere deep inside, I still like to believe that "Skyjacked" was initially meant to be a stern and intense thriller about disgruntled Vietnam veterans having to revert to terrorism in order to be heard. The original premise, or maybe even the first draft of the script, simply must have been heavily psychological and devastating. But then - and of course I'm just guessing all this - "Airplane" came in 1970, which was a tremendous financial success and promptly skyrocketed (pun intended) the formula of the "disaster movie". It's very, very likely that the popularity of "Airport" forced the writers of "Skyjacked" to drastically alter their film. All of a sudden, the potential motives of the bomber are mere footnotes, while the typical disaster clichés and stereotypes come to the foreground. Pregnant ladies going into labor, danger for mid-air collisions, etc... You know the drill.

But hey, I usually LOVE all these popcorn disaster-blockbusters, if - and only IF - they go over-the-top. "Skyjacked" doesn't have the Irwin Allen trademarks, like ginormous budgets or cartoonesque villains and cowards. The body count is far too low and there aren't any spectacular special effects or stunts. Quite often, "Skyjacked" even balances on the verge of boring, and that is totally unacceptable for a (pseudo-) disaster movie. The cast is more than impressive, and Charlton Heston is a regular disaster movie artist, but it's not your usual gathering of semi-washed up Hollywood veterans and showmen.

Apparently perfunctory airline "disaster" movie following not long after "Airport." However, the subject of a "skyjacker" (as they used to call them) is treated seriously and the size of the airplane set provides a genuine feeling of claustrophobia. In this plane, there's nowhere to run.

While the magnificent spoof "Airplane!" knocked the struts out of this sort of feature so it's hard to take these sorts of movies seriously, this portrayal of an airline in trouble is no-nonsense. It has some stereotypical passengers, such as the pregnant lady (Mariette Hartley) . . . But you've got to have passengers and pregnant women do take airplanes. Duh. And Rosie Grier's jazz cellist is a new one on me.

The cast has familiar faces. Charlton Heston is the pilot (so you feel nothing too bad can happen--can it?). Walter Pidgeon is a Senator on a secret mission for the President (no party given). But the sets aren't fancy, the music isn't portentous, the story is straight-forward and not cloying (it's amazing how quickly they get in the air, rather than goofing around with lots of exposition--you get to know these folks as you fly with them) and if the plane blows up it's the end of the world only for the few mostly ordinary people trapped in the air, whose lives feel genuinely at risk.

The mystery is no great shakes, but that's a side issue. More troubling is: in an age when Communist terrorists hijacked airplanes to Cuba, why hijack a plane to Anchorage?

Is just one of the many ridiculous lines in this preposterous 70's disaster flick which jumped onto the "AIRPORT" bandwagon. It seemed for a rather long period throughout the 70's, film studios just couldn't stop green-lighting disaster movies that contained airplanes either getting hi-jacked or having engine problems mid-flight. Some memorable "airplane" cinematic moments would be Karen Black commandeering a 'half blown-up' airplane with Charlton Heston assisting her via radio in 1974's "AIRPORT 1975". Another classic scene would be Helen Hayes getting the 'back hand' treatment by Jacqueline Bisset in 1970's "AIRPORT". But nothing comes close to the ludicrosity of 70's film sweetheart Yvette Mimieux trying to take control of the hi-jacked plane in this cinematic dud.

Charlton Heston makes his 100th disaster film appearance in "SKYJACKED", this being one of his earlier disaster flicks which were to be followed by countless others including 1974's "EARTHQUAKE", "AIRPORT 1975" and the 1992 tele-movie "CRASH LANDING: THE RESCUE OF FLIGHT 232". "SKYJACKED" would be his second film in which he co-starred with Yvette Mimieux, the first being 1962's racially-charged "DIAMOND HEAD". Charlton Heston is the pilot, Yvette Mimieux is the stewardess. Other famous personalities thrown into the mixed pot are TV-fixtures Susan Dey, Claude Akins and Roosevelt Grier and some surprising career ventures by silver screen legends, Walter Pidgeon and Jeanne Crain (this being her final film project before disappearing into obscurity - and after seeing this movie, you won't have to wonder why!).

Strange things begin to happen once the plane takes off. Some nut-case is writing deadly messages on the toilet mirror with a lipstick. Could it be Ms. Clara Shaw? (Crain) - she is wearing the same color lipstick. Could it be Senator Lindner? (Pidgeon) - a stewardess noticed his absence from his seat around the same time the message was probably written. Aboard this particular plane and among this particular group of passengers is a twisted psychopath (brilliantly portrayed by a hammy James Brolin) who ends up hi-jacking the aircraft and demands to be flown to Russia. If his demands are not met, he threatens to blow up the plane and everyone on board with it. The strangest thing here is that in one scene, James Brolin looks perfectly normal, the next scene, when it is exposed that he is the hi-jacker, his face is all sweaty, his skin is all grimy and his clothes are all damp and ruffled. Was there a full moon at that particular moment?

James Brolin delivers a wonderful campy performance as a crazed Vietnam War Veteran who spends the next hour or so keeping Heston, Mimieux and the rest of the passengers at bay while they make their way to Russia. Further ridiculous scenes would include fighter jets blasting by the plane and doing weird twists and loops in the sky as if we were watching this event from an Air Base Show. I was half expecting to see red, white and blue dust to come shooting out of their tails while they created a message in the sky. None of this is particularly relevant to the film - instead we get about 10 minutes of stock footage of military training shots as they are 'escorted' into Russia's air-space.

Meanwhile, we have Yvette Mimieux having mental 'flashbacks' to the times when she and Heston were dating, or to be politically correct, 'having an affair'. It is basically just shots of a laughing Mimieux being pushed on a swing by a laughing Heston while the sound-track converts into a symphony of pan flutes and strings, the camera lens being replaced with a 'soft lens'. None of these scenes really have any direct effect on the movie itself. These scenes are pretty much seen as 'filler' moments, as if the Director decided that he still had 10 minutes of footage to kill. Regardless, it is pretty much the basic 'pilot once dated the stewardess' plot-line.

As most of the 'airplane disaster' films end, "SKYJACKED" pretty much wraps up the way you'd expect. Hi-jacker meets his demise, passengers make it off the plane to safety, pilot and stewardess suggestively ignite a flame that could only have happened in an event such as this. I kept waiting for a scene that would make the most out of Pidgeon's and Crain's acting abilities - but they were never given the chance.

In the end, I felt like I had wasted 2 hours of my time. Unlike "AIRPORT" and its many sequels, "SKYJACKED" only had a handful of stars in it to keep it afloat. Disaster films such as "THE SWARM" and "WHEN TIME RAN OUT" pretty much counted on their 'star line up' to bring in the audiences that in the end, never bothered turning up. "SKYJACKED" barely has any 'big name draw' that would appeal to the mass public, therefore a suitable plot/script needs to ensure that it won't fall into that forgettable void where so many other films have fallen before it. Unfortunately, "SKYJACKED" fell into it.

Perhaps a more appropriate title for this film would be something Yvette Mimieux would later star in... "THE BLACK HOLE".

My rating: 3 out of 10

Great cast of horror and sci-fi regulars. It's full of old friends.Enjoyed this a lot.

I stumbled on this movie on TCM one slow afternoon and was surprised I never heard of it with so many big names in the cast. I can see why the director, John Guillermin, didn't do anything substantial after this lame duck. Even the most rudimentary aviation credibility is lost in this film, from the ridiculous flying skills obviously exaggerated for the movie, to the laughable aviation radio-speak, and finally the cockpit not even close to resembling anything like a Boeing 707.

The plot is full of holes large enough to fly a 707 through. Like the Soviet fighters didn't know the airliner was 'civilian' until Charlton Heston drops the landing gear. Huh? Does anyone know how many miles it is from Anchorage to Moscow? Almost 4500! And I didn't even know James Brolin could over-act to this degree. I could go on and on but won't.

My tolerance for 1970's disaster movies is fairly high but this movie is totally intolerable to the point of laughable. And what's with the flashbacks?! Did the script mandate all the profanity and silly dialogue? It's almost as though the director wanted to make "an adult film" and used profanity to prove the point.

I first saw this film when it was released at the theatre in 1972, (I was 12yrs old), under the title "Sky Terror". Being an aviation buff, I was in my glory- This film had everything! Some of the best shots of a Boeing 707 in flight, (Most flight scenes today are computer generated and are extremely phony) and Yvette Mimieux, who has never looked more glamourous, as the first Stewardess. What more could an airline buff want. Charlton Heston reprises "Moses" in the cabin, as only he could. James Brolin is the resident bomb-carrying, psycopathic war vet, who's released on a 4F and wants to hijack everyone to Russia so he can be decorated. Mariette Hartley, is a believable "expectant-mother", who boards the flight as she's about to give birth. (How'd she slip past the gate agent?) Then there's Susan Dey, who was suspect immediately, as a Hippie traveling first class! There's a fairly good story here with the usual soap opera flair. (Mimieux's character has had an affair with the Captain and currently dating the 1st Officer). Geat interior and exterior scenes combined with above average acting and good dialogue, makes this all-star film, worth watching.

I give it a: * * 1/2 rating, they lose half a star for being an almost direct rip-off of "Airport".

"Skyjacked" tells the story of a commercial flight, captained by the steadfast Hank O'Hara (Charlton Heston) to Minneapolis-St. Paul. However, one of the passengers will demand that they reroute to Anchorage, threatening to blow up a bomb that they've brought on board. People on the ground and on the flight do everything they can to ensure a safe trip, even as the plane must travel through (you guessed it) stormy weather.

I'll actually refrain from mentioning who the antagonist is, although I will say that it becomes too readily apparent too soon. Still, this early entry in the 1970s cycle of all-star disaster films offers reasonable entertainment. Director John Guillermin ("King Kong" '76, "The Towering Inferno") keeps things sufficiently tense, and sometimes amusing, and elicits mostly solid performances from his cast of veterans and then-newcomers. Photography, music, and action sequences are all impressively done.

The rogues gallery of characters is rather standard for this sort of thing. Football legend Roosevelt Grier comes off the best as an upbeat, engaging jazz cellist. Lots of familiar faces, and some very lovely ladies: Yvette Mimieux is formidable as the strong willed head stewardess, and Susan Dey makes her film debut as a hippie type made to look suspicious by flying first class. Some performers don't get to do too much, but Walter Pidgeon, one of my favorite actors, is typically delightful as an old senator.

You kind of have to put your brain in neutral for this one, but at least it isn't boring.

Seven out of 10.