Well, I never thought I’d hear the words “Cocksucker mother****er” come out of Steven Seagal’s mouth so passionately.
And when that’s my opening sentence, you know you’re in for a bad Seagal flick.
Submerged has had quite the interesting ride from conception to distribution. While I’ll have to wait for the director to return from Europe to hopefully get his comments on the production, Submerged has seemingly been marketed as ten different things during its lifespan. There was a point when this was its synopsis: “A submarine crew is trapped at the bottom of the ocean after cases of a biological agent are broken. The crew must fight against the mutated creatures that are attacking them, a U.S. Destroyer that has turned against them, and traitors from within.”
The Submerged that we’re getting is entirely different from that. Fifteen minutes of the movie is spent on a submarine. There is no unintentional sinking, biological agents, mutated creatures, an evil U.S. destroyer, or even traitors. So essentially, they changed the entire plot after selling the film to foreign investors. The change seems to have been brought on by someone at Millennium Films loving the idea behind The Manchurian Candidate. The similarities are just too large to gloss over.
Seagal, who just looks tired and worn out with giant wrinkles becoming more and more obvious as each movie comes and goes, plays Chris Cody, an imprisoned soldier who broke some of those pesky international laws in order to prevent a terrorist attack sometime after 9/11. The government needs Cody to lead his old team into the usual unnamed foreign country that Bulgaria doubles for. In addition to taking out a man with terrorist ties, they also must bring back five terrorists to U.S. soil. If this is achieved, a fat paycheck and a nice pardon is in all of their futures. They enter the area successfully, securing what Cody and his crew have been led to believe are terrorists.
Only that’s not the truth. These men are American soldiers, brainwashed via a new mind control technique that creates nearly unstoppable killing machines. There’s a huge conspiracy plot that comes along with it, one that is just too big for a Seagal flick. From the moment their submarine explodes to the last five minutes, Submerged is just trash.
Anthony Hickox, a long time b-movie director, is at the helm of this one and his experience shows. While he is overambitious at times, he and his cinematographer did a fantastic job during much of the movie, especially the battle scenes. Since this is a Seagal vehicle, meaning that international distributors won’t be so quick to balk at blood, he also keeps the red stuff flowing. Some of the deaths that Hickox and Souza dreamt up are quite brutal to watch.
The most incredibly ridiculous aspect of the movie is no doubt the dubbing of Steven Seagal’s voice. Certain direct-to-video Seagal films in the past have done this sparingly, using another actor’s voice over Seagal’s lips. This habit, however, is done throughout the entire movie. And when Seagal kicks a certain someone through a huge window towards the film’s end, if you look even casually at the blurred background you’ll notice that there’s no way in hell that its Steven Seagal.
Most notable about this average Seagal film is that Into the Sun was released just a little over three months before Submerged’s release. That’s quite the turnaround time.
DVD: Completely barebones. Not even Sony’s usual assortment of subtitles is here, which makes me think the final product was delivered late.
Not to be confused with the epic Fred Olen Ray film of the same name, which starred Coolio.
Rating : 4/10
Source : Your Video Store Shelf
And when that’s my opening sentence, you know you’re in for a bad Seagal flick.
Submerged has had quite the interesting ride from conception to distribution. While I’ll have to wait for the director to return from Europe to hopefully get his comments on the production, Submerged has seemingly been marketed as ten different things during its lifespan. There was a point when this was its synopsis: “A submarine crew is trapped at the bottom of the ocean after cases of a biological agent are broken. The crew must fight against the mutated creatures that are attacking them, a U.S. Destroyer that has turned against them, and traitors from within.”
The Submerged that we’re getting is entirely different from that. Fifteen minutes of the movie is spent on a submarine. There is no unintentional sinking, biological agents, mutated creatures, an evil U.S. destroyer, or even traitors. So essentially, they changed the entire plot after selling the film to foreign investors. The change seems to have been brought on by someone at Millennium Films loving the idea behind The Manchurian Candidate. The similarities are just too large to gloss over.
Seagal, who just looks tired and worn out with giant wrinkles becoming more and more obvious as each movie comes and goes, plays Chris Cody, an imprisoned soldier who broke some of those pesky international laws in order to prevent a terrorist attack sometime after 9/11. The government needs Cody to lead his old team into the usual unnamed foreign country that Bulgaria doubles for. In addition to taking out a man with terrorist ties, they also must bring back five terrorists to U.S. soil. If this is achieved, a fat paycheck and a nice pardon is in all of their futures. They enter the area successfully, securing what Cody and his crew have been led to believe are terrorists.
Only that’s not the truth. These men are American soldiers, brainwashed via a new mind control technique that creates nearly unstoppable killing machines. There’s a huge conspiracy plot that comes along with it, one that is just too big for a Seagal flick. From the moment their submarine explodes to the last five minutes, Submerged is just trash.
Anthony Hickox, a long time b-movie director, is at the helm of this one and his experience shows. While he is overambitious at times, he and his cinematographer did a fantastic job during much of the movie, especially the battle scenes. Since this is a Seagal vehicle, meaning that international distributors won’t be so quick to balk at blood, he also keeps the red stuff flowing. Some of the deaths that Hickox and Souza dreamt up are quite brutal to watch.
The most incredibly ridiculous aspect of the movie is no doubt the dubbing of Steven Seagal’s voice. Certain direct-to-video Seagal films in the past have done this sparingly, using another actor’s voice over Seagal’s lips. This habit, however, is done throughout the entire movie. And when Seagal kicks a certain someone through a huge window towards the film’s end, if you look even casually at the blurred background you’ll notice that there’s no way in hell that its Steven Seagal.
Most notable about this average Seagal film is that Into the Sun was released just a little over three months before Submerged’s release. That’s quite the turnaround time.
DVD: Completely barebones. Not even Sony’s usual assortment of subtitles is here, which makes me think the final product was delivered late.
Not to be confused with the epic Fred Olen Ray film of the same name, which starred Coolio.
Rating : 4/10
Source : Your Video Store Shelf