Of all the Airport sequels, Airport ’77 may just be the most operatic. By 1977, the disaster genre had officially hit saturation, but this third entry pulls off something rare: it commits so hard to the premise — a hijacked 747 crashing and sinking into the ocean — that it actually works. Somehow, the film about an underwater jumbo jet avoids becoming a complete joke. That’s partly because it stars Jack Lemmon… and he’s not joking.

Captain Don Gallagher (Lemmon, The China Syndrome) is piloting a high-tech, art-filled, private 747 belonging to billionaire Philip Stevens (James Stewart, mostly standing around looking disapproving). When a mid-flight hijacking goes off the rails, the plane crashes into the Bermuda Triangle and sinks to the ocean floor, trapping a cast of legends, character actors, and future scream queens inside.

The plot is lunacy, but the cast plays it like Shakespeare in a scuba suit. You’ve got Christopher Lee (Dracula) diving into floodwaters with elegant menace, Lee Grant (In the Heat of the Night) getting in a fistfight with a stewardess, Olivia de Havilland (Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte) oozing dignity while trapped in rising water, and Brenda Vaccaro (Supergirl) throwing side-eye like it’s a flotation device.

And then there’s Lemmon. He’s not punching out terrorists or cracking wise. He’s sweaty, determined, and completely dialed in. He doesn’t just ground the film — he sells it. What should be laughable becomes tense, even moving, because Lemmon refuses to coast. His performance gives the sinking jumbo jet some serious emotional lift.

Director Jerry Jameson (later of Raise the Titanic) shoots with economy and urgency, staging underwater sequences with surprising clarity. This thing moves. It never lingers long enough for you to question why a priceless art exhibit is flying over the Bermuda Triangle in the first place.

Kino Lorber’s 4K UHD release does right by the visuals. The new Dolby Vision HDR scan from the original 35mm negative brings out rich color in both the lavish interiors and the deep-sea murk. The model work — and there’s a lot of it — looks crisp enough to appreciate the craft, not mock it. Bonus points for an audio commentary by Julie Kirgo and Peter Hankoff that mixes personal anecdotes with production backstory, Laserdisc tangents, and plenty of love for the sheer audacity of it all.

Airport ’77 isn’t subtle. It’s not meant to be. It’s a wild stew of melodrama, movie stars, and maritime mayhem — and somehow, it lands. Or more accurately, floats.