SpecialsTarget
Disturbing yet enthralling
ChanFamous
I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.
Kamila Bell
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
r-c-s
This movie might be dubbed the king of salad bowl movies, with so many subplots and genres mixed... 1 a James Bond subplot about some Swiss crime agency planning to steal huge amounts of gold. 2 a Yosei Gorasu rip-off subplot about a planetoid of exceptional mass colliding with earth, diverted using nuclear missiles (cfr Meteor with Sean Connery ). 3 a hero-in-distress subplot about an admiral falsely accused of murder 4 a mutant able to breathe under water (later copied in "the man from Atlantis" with Patrick Duffy ) 5 a secret underwater nuclear warhead base. 6 the underwater experimental city in which research is held to produce plancton-based foods subplot (cfr Soylent Green & H&B cartoon Sealab 2020 in 1977 ). 7 costumes, trying to imagine new fashion, are reminiscent of UK UFO. 8 all women look like beauty contestants wearing minidresses & high-heels (cfr Star Trek, UFO etc ). 9 the friend-turned-traitor conspiracy subplot.This said, it's a short & enjoyable, unpretentious movie. SFX look very dated ( the piles of gold bullions are clearly carton boxes ) but retain that 1960-ish charm, extended to the whole movie, typical of UFO & other productions using perhaps too many garage sale toys and miniatures. Acting is negligible, with iconic characters playing their part: the scheming traitor; the coward hireling of the traitor; the belle who changes her mind; the hero... Forsyth's and Miranda's pretty legs and face are the best part of acting i guess. However, it is an easy movie for some relaxing time. You are not supposed to find 1984 (1954, with Peter Cushing ) acting or Matrix SFX in a 1960ish movie with toys & miniatures...are you? To watch more than once.
inspectors71
Viewers with a deep affection for cheese will savor Irwin Allen's City Beneath the Sea, a big, big bubble of sci-fi silliness best reviewed by fdixon-3. I won't trod over fdixon's terrain, but there are a couple of fun things to add to his review.I've spoken of how much I liked Rosemary Forsyth, and you can see her career slowly sink in CBTS. She looks wonderful in a mini-skirt, but long legs and hurt looks (at hero Stuart Whitman's suspected cowardice) can't keep this soggy nonsense afloat.Needless to say, Allen pretty much bailed out of TV and went for the big screen (with The Towering Inferno and When Time Ran Out).Lucky for TV.
StuOz
About a fantastic city beneath the sea.Everything about this film, the effects, the sets, the casting, the actors, are all fine, but with the one problem area of Robert Colbert and the terrible lines he has and the terrible acting he gives.An early character building scene in this film has Colbert respond to Stu Whitman by saying "that's right we all take orders ... just like Bill Holmes did". It sounded terrible! But having said that. This is pure Irwin Allen showmanship of the best kind. As others have pointed out, Richard Basehart and the flying sub make this feel like an up-dated Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and who could blame Irwin for wanting to bring back Voyage?But non-Voyage things such as Stu Whitman and Robert Wagner (Beneath The 12 Mile Reef and The Towering Inferno) make this great entertainment. Also the Richard LaSalle score and big sets with blinking light Time Tunnel computers. I have actually made about 30 viewings of this film over the years. I love it.
manzp
This movie came out when I was twelve years old. Although the effects are now cheesy compared to modern technology, at the time I loved it; it was perfect for a 12 year old. I remember at school the next day everyone saying how cool the movie was. It was perfect after having previously experiencing Lost in Space, Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants, etc... Irwin Allen knew how to entertain kids of that era.
