Unlike what a lot of lazy film snobs like to say, Blue Tornado is not some Top Gun meets Close Encounters of the Third Kind movie. It’s much more nuanced than that. It’s actually Top Gun‘s music, fetishistic shots of jet planes and pilots with awesome call signs plus an alien abduction tacked on at the end. It even actually surpasses Top Gun since while Maverick just let Goose die, Firebird hiked up a mountain and rescued Thunder from the clutches of a bunch of alien strobe lights. Kick the tires and the light the fires on that, Mav!
TV legends Dirk Benedict (Battlestar Galactica – the real one, The A-Team) and Ted McGinley (Happy Days, The Love Boat, Married With Children) are the best two pilots on whatever NATO base they are stationed at. We know this because they seem to be the only pilots stationed at this NATO base. And because both have the best damn hair ever to fly whatever a Tornado is. (Probably what you fly if you can’t afford the payment on a F-15E Strike Eagle.)
Firebird and Thunder do the usual sorts of ace pilot stuff. They engage in a dogfight with an enemy fighter penetrating their territory in a sequence that goes on so long it will have you reaching for the ejector button on your recliner. When it finally ends with the unknown jet outflying our heroes and escaping, you just wish the aliens would kidnap these losers already and take them off our hands.
Thunder also has a wife and kids who surely only exist to give Firebird some dramatic moments with Thunder’s family after his jet crashes and he is presumed dead. The model rocket that Thunder was building with Thunder, Jr. isn’t going to launch itself, right Firebird?
If you’re wondering just how erstwhile Lethal Weapon 2 star Patsy Kensit fits into things, she’s the sexy gal that Firebird meets at the library when he tries to check out a video on UFOs. During the training exercise where Thunder’s plane crashed, Firebird saw a bright light and is now convinced that something is lurking on the mountaintop where it happened.
Patsy is also researching UFOs and teaches Firebrid everything she knows about UFOs which if you actually know what UFO stands for, isn’t a hell of a lot. But she pulls out a map with some lines on it and claims it shows where the most sightings are and the line goes right over the mountain! A map is always proof of something.
Following an ill-fated official mission to fly around the mountain looking for evidence of something where all Firebird manages to accomplish is killing a bunch of his fellow pilots and destroying millions of dollars worth of jets and being told by officials that the crazy light show he saw was just ball lightning, Firebird knows he has to go old school to solve this!
Only one thing left to do! Climb the freaking mountain! And guess who’s an expert mountain climber? Thunder’s elderly dad! I would tell you that they planned and mounted a comprehensive expedition, but I hate lying so blatantly. Thunder’s dad had a backpack and walking stick, while Firebird geared up with a coat and gloves! How the hell are they going to climb a mountain like that? This is Europe. What they call mountain climbing, we call a moderately strenuous hike. Doesn’t make it less dangerous though! Especially if you’re 70 and clumsy! Whoops! Twisted ankle. Go on and confront the aliens by yourself Firebird! You’ll be fine!
You know why I loved the ending of this movie? Because it somehow managed to be so minimal and at the same time make zero sense! How hard must that be to achieve! What does Firebird find up on Mt. Saucer? Thunder. Just standing around looking like he’s been probed in his perfect ass too many times. But he snaps out of it when Firebird talks to him.
The movie concludes after they embrace and head down the mountain. Can you imagine how relieved Firebird was that he decided to bang the UFO researcher and not his best friend’s wife when everyone thought he was dead? Dodged a bullet there, bro, no thanks to those stinky aliens!
Director Antonio Bido is for good reason better known for his two giallos, The Bloodstained Shadow and Watch Me When I Kill and not this airsick bag stuffed full of cheesy pilot clichés (you will laugh out loud when Firebird is grounded, poses longingly near the runway and dramatically takes off his sunglasses) and the completely tossed off alien story.
Bido commits severe cinematic turbulence against the audience as he forces it to endure interminable shots of jets flying here and there, landing, taking off, dull mission control activity and pissy-faced David Warner as Firebird’s commander while holding out the promise of some alien action in at least the last third of the movie. And all he delivers is Firebird looking at some lights and ancient pictographs purportedly depicting aliens before he finds Thunder looking fine after all these weeks.
It’s a rough flight that goes nowhere for an hour and half and should be grounded before all those G forces of boredom leave the audience suffering a dangerous case of G-Loc. Cerebral hypoxia thy name is Blue Tornado!
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