Sky Fighters (2005)

Based on a popular French comic book, the high-flying adventure story Les Chevaliers du ciel (2005)––that’s Sky Fighters for Francophobes––proves that special effects have come a long way since the Top Gun (1986) days. Benoit Magimel and Clovis Cornillac star as Walk’n and Fahrenheit––a pair of flight-suit-wearing specialists enlisted to track down an experimental aircraft that mysteriously disappears from radar. The team locates the craft but quickly has a firefight on their hands, as the pilot of the French Mirage 2000 pits their planes with a barrage of bullets. Barely escaping with their lives, Walk’n and Fahrenheit return to base to discover that sinister elements within the government are responsible for the ordeal. Impressive pyrotechnics aside, director Gérard Pirès is clever enough to realize that his film’s in need of a modern-day Kelly McGillis. It’s for this reason that he invites chic Latina Rey Reyes to do a sultry striptease from atop a newly polished plane.