Overpower
2022 · 11m · Australia
Directed by Tom Goodall
Two airline pilots aboard a highly automated commercial jet battle the plane's central computer when it overrides their commands and begins diving the aircraft, convinced it is saving them. They race to regain manual control before the machine kills everyone on board.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A competent man-vs-machine thriller that lands exactly where you'd expect it to—the real subversion would've been letting the computer win, or finding something genuinely weird in the premise beyond 'AI bad.' Still, shooting in a live flight simulator is a flex that at least keeps you from rolling your eyes.
Goodall understands the spatial grammar of the cockpit and the bureaucratic texture of commercial aviation in ways that feel earned; the film sits comfortably in the procedural-thriller tradition while respecting the weight of its technical subject matter, even if the thematic argument doesn't quite break new ground.
The decision to shoot entirely inside the working Adelaide simulator—real instrumentation, real spatial logic, no green screen—gives every frame a tactile authority that transforms what could be a generic AI-threat story into something that breathes with authenticity; that one constraint is what makes the tension land.
Reviews
A gripping and authentic short thriller about a commercial flight endangered by its own super-intelligent plane.