Con AirMovie Reviews

Gifts + Promos

Fandango Gift Card

Give the gift of movies with Fandango Bucks Gift Certificates! Design your own gift card, or choose from our collection.

Avengers Gift Cards

Superhero fans! Don’t miss out on these Limited Edition Avengers gift cards!

Need Help?
So-so
Avg. Critic Score: 52 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
16 Iffy for 16+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 80
    Washington Post | Rita Kempley

    Preposterous, predictable, but excessively entertaining, this frenzied thriller draws both story and characters from such action classics as "The Fugitive," "Die Hard," "The Dirty Dozen" and "The Silence of the Lambs." Read full review

  • 80
    Washington Post | Desson Thomson

    Con Air, a summer blast of a movie, teaches us many things: Producer Jerry Bruckheimer never met an explosion, a car crash or 20 tough guys talking trash he didn't like. Nicolas Cage is one of our most enjoyable screen heroes. As long as you're funny, you can literally get away with murder in a movie. Read full review

  • 75
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    This is a movie that knows it is absurd, and does little to deny it. Read full review

  • 70
    Variety | Todd McCarthy

    Apart from not knowing to quit while it's ahead, Con Air provides quite an exciting flight prior to its crash and burn. Read full review

  • 70
    The New York Times | Elvis Mitchell

    The colorfully written Con Air is a solid chip off "The Rock," pumped up and very well cast, with the prettiness and polish of advertising art. Read full review

  • 70
    Los Angeles Times | Kenneth Turan

    Numbing but not boring, it's finally more dispiriting than exhilarating, like a wild night of debauchery that leaves only a fearsome hangover for a souvenir. Read full review

  • 60
    Salon.com | Charles Taylor

    How's the movie? Big, loud, brutal and stupid, that's how it is. But then, you don't need a critic to tell you that -- anyone with a grade-school education who's seen the previews can figure that out. Read full review

  • 50
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    From scene to scene, the tone shifts from supposed sincerity to arch and amused, until the picture begins to seem like some mad, desperate, scattershot attempt to hold an audience's attention from moment to moment, by any means. Read full review

  • 50
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    It's so shameless, so psychotically nervous about keeping you ''thrilled,'' that the phrase over the top won't do it justice. It's like a drug designed for people who've done every drug and now want to be jet-propelled into numbness. Read full review

  • 38
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    Con Air has all the signs of a hit. That's depressing. Read full review

View more reviews for Con Air on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 16+ A schmaltzy action-adventure at 8,000 feet.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that one character, a convicted rapist, threatens to rape a female guard and later attempts it. The film implies that a mass murderer killed a little girl (later, we find out he didn't). Characters graphically describe murders and rapes they have committed; many kill again, on screen and gruesomely.
  • Families can talk about why movies like Con Air make murder seem so easy. Why don't any of the characters seem affected by the murders they've just committed? Families may also want to discuss why the film depicts the felons as dangerous but also loveable. Families may also want to discuss Poe's heroics. Do women need to be saved? How do men in your family show they love women? Did Poe defend his wife's honor by fighting those men, or was he really defending his masculinity?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: The plane is full of antisocial and sociopathic criminals who act in accordance; one stereotypically gay inmate; a lot of disrespect for authority.
What to watch for
  • violence false5 Violence: An inmate threatens then attempts to rape a female guard; several people are shot to death; an arm is severed from a body; a body is thrown from the plane.
  • sex false0 Sex: Not an issue
  • language false3 Language: The "n" word is used several times; crude terms for a woman's vagina are used to belittle men; general swearing.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: The end is an ad for Las Vegas.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Some smoking and drinking, but not by the main character.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

Facebook Movie Fans

Fan Fandango on Facebook