Action cinema changed in 1999. The release of The Matrix unleashed a torrent of imitators, but also altered fundamentally the editing of movies in the genre. This came with a price. Action sequences became harder to follow.

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Character was relegated. The old style idea of pitting a movie star against some peril in extraordinary circumstances was seemingly less tempting. The Matrix had started something. Well, that, or everyone just watched Con Air, and figured they couldn't top it. Because in truth, how could they? One of the most quotable, enjoyable and wildly entertaining blockbusters of the 1990s, I can't think of anything of its ilk that's topped it since.

And revisiting it? Well, I've taken on tougher assignments, let's put it that way.

'They somehow managed to get every freak and creep in the universe on this one plane, and then somehow managed to let them take it over, and then they somehow managed to stick us right smack in the middle'. For what strikes you from the off with Con Air is that everyone's in on the joke.

I think it was the original Empire review that compared, for instance, the prison montage at the start to something the Zucker brothers could come up with, and I fully see the point. After all, when the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker spoof machine was at full effectiveness, the trick was to play everything straight.

By all means let the circumstances be extraordinary. But never, never let your characters wink at the camera. They have to believe what they're surrounded. Fs global real weather v1 7273139089. Thus, as Nicolas Cage's hairy Cameron Poe finds himself 'becoming that man again' (a rare hint at the character's darkness), he's locked up for eight years at the start of Con Air - just as his daughter was about to be born. Rather than press the montage button, writer Scott Rosenberg and director Simon West do something inspired.

They pass time by having Casey and Cameron Poe write letters to each other. They say a film has ten minutes to get your attention. By the time ten minutes was up with Con Air, I was practically writing love letters to it. Truthfully, I could watch the prison sequence on loop for hours, and never not smile at it.

Cage's drawling delivery is utterly magnetic, but you already know that. Heck, there's even a little narrative weave that goes in. Poe gets a book on Spanish For Beginners, the next moment he's speaking the language. He gets one on Origami, and soon he's making an animal out of paper. This prologue, however, wasn't in the original script.

When director Simon West came aboard the project (for his feature debut), he met with Cage. Cage suggested that Poe should be a decorated army ranger, and West duly added the opening sequence. Cinema is forever grateful for that.

Still, once the prologue ends, it's time for Poe's big day. And he's thus on his way to meet his daughter for the first time. Once he's packed a toy bunny, of course. 'My daddy's coming home on July 14th. My birthday is July 14th. I'm going to see my daddy for the first time ever on July 14th' Were Poe to be released in any planet close to Earth, then he'd just get some basic transport, or be let out of the prison gate.

For reasons of movieland contrivance, he needs to get a flight home. He and his diabetic friend, Baby-O, thus get the next flight back.

John Cusack's Vince Larkin has decided to fill it with some of America's most deadly criminals. All of them, by the looks of it. This, of course, seemingly makes little sense. Why would you pack a plane full of some of the most dangerous criminals out there?

Why would you let Colm Meaney's azz-kickr DEA scenery-chewery to allow his agent to sneak a gun on there? And then, as if you didn't have enough convicts to fill a movie, why would you then schedule a stop in Carson City to pick up some more?

But then there's the more important point: when it's all this much fun, who the hell cares? Remarkably though, the transport system is based on fact. Screenwriter Scott Rosenberg learned of it, and managed to blag a ride. As he said around the time of the film's release, 'I spent three days on the Con Air plane with the convicts.

We flew all over the country. These guys were in a really bad mood. It was just before Christmas, and that didn't help matters.