This Could Be A Repost But I Am To Lazy To Check. Anyways:
Bury it at Sea(Even as a Fan I can admit this is quite a clever Title. Almost as clever as "His Career Has Submerged")
It’s amazing how productive some actors can be once they descend from the silver screen to the direct to DVD ghetto. Stars like Wesley Snipes who had frequently taken extended vacations from filming can suddenly be found peaking out from new spots on the video rental shelf several times a year. I suppose it gets harder to make those Ferrari payments, or perhaps they fear the new mailman won’t know who they are. Whatever the case, no one has been more prolific in recent years than action icon Steven Seagal. Since falling off Hollywood’s radar screen in 2002 he’s been on a relentless campaign to make his corny box office hits of old look like “Citizen Kane.” From 2003 to 2004 he released five films, and has another six due out this year. His latest opus is the thriller "Submerged,” and I’ll pause here for a moment while you make witty puns about the state of his career.
All done? Great. Seagal’s previous outing “Into the Sun” was actually a mild return to form. Not just because he was looking fitter than normal, but also in terms of acting and production values. The action was still rather wanting, so I hoped “Submerged” would complete his redemption. No such luck, as Seagal tumbles head over heels down the slippery slope again. To start with the title is a misnomer. A pleasant surprise really, since I’ve seen my fill of submarine films already. Only about a quarter of the film is spent underwater, and the rest is a confusing mishmash of psychological thriller and conventional action. The latter I always welcome, but the former is an odd fit here. Early on the screenwriter seems to be setting up a horror movie, but then is apparently replaced by a retarded baboon and the story veers all over the place. Maybe my potassium intake is too low, but after a while all I could do is laugh really. If that’s good enough for you, then pull up a six-pack and climb aboard.
At the U.S. Embassy in the Uruguayan capital Montevideo, Secret Service agents are briefing the ambassador on a terrorist base when they suddenly go haywire and kill her, then themselves. In Washington intelligence analyst Dr. Chappell (Christine Adams) concludes some sort of mind control device must have been used. A Delta Force commando team is sent to Uruguay to investigate, but they are quickly ambushed and captured. Taken to the terrorist base, they are brainwashed by megalomaniacal scientist Adrian Lehder (Nick Brimble). The Navy recruits prisoner Chris Cody (Steven Seagal) and his talented crew of misfit military inmates to take Chappell and special agent Fletcher (William Hope) to destroy the facility and kill Lehder. In exchange they will be freed and cleared of alleged misconduct. Suspicious, Cody quickly jettisons Fletcher, who turns out to be in league with the enemy. He tips off Lehder and they quickly abandon the facility, leaving behind a few American prisoners as Trojan horses. One team of Cody’s men commandeers a submarine while the others secure the base and rescue the prisoners. The team fights its way past a tank, destroys the base, and escapes on the sub. Although they consider the mission over, they soon discover they have become the hunted, and race to find Lehder before his deadly drones claim them all.
Having taken a breather in “Into the Sun,” Seagal’s one note goofy political commentary makes a halfhearted return in Submerged. Target number one comes as no surprise to the sad, deluded fans of “On Deadly Ground”: large corporations. However, in contrast to the usual environmentalist grandstanding, this time the message is a bit vague. Cody tells Lehder’s corporate backer that mind control is dangerous when “private enterprise” uses it “for their own agenda.” Meaning I suppose that he wouldn’t be bothered if Kim Jong Il had this technology, but heaven forbid Proctor & Gamble inflate their shampoo sales. This confusing liberal assertion is supported by a recycled conservative threat echoing Sylvester Stallone’s Cobra: “You’ve now become poison… I’m the antidote.” And this conservative trend continues when the film takes a surprising swipe at the UN, claiming they slandered Cody’s men for using excessive force when they were just doing their job. Could it be that Seagal fears his traditionally liberal agenda is costing him DVD sales in today’s climate? Presuming that the typical “Submerged” purchaser would be capable of discerning the finer nuances of the “poison” speech.
The film has a large cast, though most of the D-list talent comes and goes with little consequence. Everyone’s favorite pony tailed Buddha dominates the scenes he’s in, though not by weight of performance. Seagal’s comical tough guy entrance is announced by thunderous heavy metal as he lumbers awkwardly into frame with all the menace of a pregnant hippo. Seldom confused with Olivier, Seagal takes his delivery to a new level of woodenness. Early on he seems to be experimenting with a cheesy Cajun accent, but soon loses interest and spends the rest of the picture affecting a bad cold. Or possibly one his doubles was called in to do some stunt acting. Guy Ritchie film veteran Vinnie Jones displays more charisma than the rest of the cast combined as Cody’s right hand man Henry. Seagal cleverly avoids being upstaged by keeping the two separate most of the time. Adams is consistently stiff, and her face is fixed in a disconcertingly intense gaze as if she were giving her agent the evil eye. Hope is a passable slimeball, and Brimble hams it up as if a “Young and the Restless” role were on the line.
Alas, Seagal’s fists of fury have long since relaxed to mild irritation, and his brief sparring time is relatively unexceptional. His final fight does show some of the classic Seagal viciousness, but is over in a flash and framed so tightly that anyone could be in some of those shots. Most of the film’s action is instantly forgettable B movie stuff, but late in the game there’s a surprisingly decent car chase and a fairly tense showdown during an opera performance. I bet you never thought you’d see that in a Seagal film.
Of course the real joy in watching his recent works is noting all the cheesy budgetary shortcuts and preposterous plot points. First off the film turns out not to be shot in South America at all, but in Bulgaria (!). Was this really the best stand-in available? Surely Mexico would have been cheap. Although I confess they did fool me in the urban scenes. I guess the film’s budget was concentrated in its second half, because early on some embarrassingly obvious models and stock footage are paraded in front of the camera. The comedy is solid throughout though. On the sub intelligence expert Chappell explains to jarhead Cody that she is along because of Lehder’s high tech project, then inexplicably thrusts a disc of complex technical data into his meaty hands for analysis (!). The silliness increases when she belatedly reveals she knew well and good that the prisoners they risked their lives to rescue have become psychotic killers past the point of no return. Gee, that would have been nice to know before they killed half the crew. Later at the opera Seagal convinces the Uruguayan president that he is the new U.S. ambassador while wearing one of his long gaudy coats and no tie. I guess it’s only a matter of time before Snoop Dogg gets his first diplomatic post.
Like other recent Seagal releases the disc contains no special features at all. I suppose they reasoned that since the shoddy special effects methods used were so laughably obvious no further explanation was necessary. I would have liked some background on the design of Seagal’s stunt toupee though.
Let’s face it; you weren’t really expecting a good movie. Those guys left during the first paragraph. All you wanted was something you could get drunk and throw popcorn at. I’m happy to report that “Submerged” presents a rich target. Sure, I miss the excitement of the old days, but Seagal has matured, and like a fine wine, he goes well with cheese.
Submerged (2005) from Johnny Web
Some day I expect to hear this on the Oscars: "And the award for the best actor goes to ...
Bulgaria."
Bulgaria has now shown an acting versatility that would make Alec Guinness envious. You think DeNiro made an impressive physical metamorphosis in Raging Bull? Well, I ask you this: could DeNiro play the part of Uruguay? OK, maybe he could play Paraguay or Bolivia, I'll give you that, but how could Mr. Method Acting Genius fake a coastline?
You will note the incredible attention to detail in Bulgaria's clever disguise shown to the right.
That is just so wrong in so many ways.
First of all, it's a neo-classical building with an elaborate bas-relief placed just above ... an obviously tacked-on paper sign with the name of the building.
Second, it is not one paper sign, but two, and you can see they aren't aligned properly! The right side is lower.
Third, it's a "national opera", not a "city opera", and would therefore be the "Opera Nacional de Uruguay." Think about it, if Canada had a National Opera Company headquartered in Ottawa, would their building say National Opera of Canada, or National Opera of Ottawa? Get my drift? Ottawa is not a nation. Neither is Montevideo.
Oh, well. I guess it might have been worse. At least it wasn't written in the Cyrillic alphabet, like some of the street signs in "Montevideo."
I have to say one thing for the director of this film. He has a sense of humor. Note the frame to the left, picturing that mighty warship, the USS Clinton.
I suppose it is only right that the most powerful naval vessel should be named after Bill Clinton. After all, he's the one President most closely associated with seamen.
I don't think it should be stationed in the Atlantic, however. It should be permanently moored in Bangkok. And of course, they should never assign female officers to the Clinton, for fear they will go down on it. To be honest, the USS Clinton should really have been a sub. Not only are they associated with going down, but that would certainly give new meaning to "raising the periscope" and "blowing the ballast".
In the film, however, the USS Clinton was a carrier that never came to port. It stayed permanently at sea for strategic reasons. When it needed anything, it was simply serviced by the USS Lewinsky.
OK, I got that out of my system. Back to the movie.
Submerged could have been entered in The Simpsons' famous Stock Footage Film Festival. Every time they needed an establishing shot of the exterior of the mighty USS Clinton, the director showed stock newsreel footage - and each time it was a different carrier! Sometimes the changes were pretty obvious. First we're looking at a conventional Forrestal-class carrier with a big number 62 painted on it. (Naval records show that to be the now-decommissioned Independence, below left.) Then we're looking at a larger nuclear carrier with a big ol' 65 painted on it. (That would be the Enterprise, below right.) Even a landlubber like me can see that the fokkin' jumbo-ass numbers are different!
Visit The Link For Hilarious Pictures:
http://www.scoopy.com/submerged.htm
Did I mention that I'm supposed to be talking about a Steven Seagal movie? The big fella's career keeps making wild swerves. In the earlier part of this decade, it seemed that he was all but through. In 2003, his weight was out of control and he made back-to-back awful movies directed by Michael Oblowitz: The Foreigner and Out for a Kill. Then, somehow, miraculously, Seagal made a partial comeback. He took greater control of his projects, helped with the script ideas, moved back into Asian locales, and slimmed down enough to throw out his muu-muus and do his own fight scenes. The next three films were a marked improvement over those two earlier disasters.
I'm sad to say that Submerged represents a backslide for the Weighty Warrior. It isn't as bad as those two Oblowitz films, but it's near the bottom of Seagal's career achievements.
And being near the bottom of Seagal's filmography is ... well, this isn't some picky guy like Edward Norton or John Casale we're talking about here, this is Seagal. Even his best film of the present century is only rated 5.29, and that's not for lack of trying. He makes two per year. But his best films, and even his mediocre films like Belly of the Beast, are fun for Seagal fans, and there must still be plenty of those because the man keeps working.
Frankly, Seagal can't be blamed for the quality of this movie. It is just a bad project in general, and it is not tailored for the Chinless Commando in any way. The Conquering Chowhound plays the generic leader of a bunch of generic bad-ass mercenaries. The role doesn't call for any martial arts expertise; doesn't take place in Asia; doesn't even make use of any of Seagal's interest in Asian cultures - not one fokkin' ceremonial sword in the entire film. The story is supposed to take place in Uruguay although, as we've already noted, the role of Uruguay is played by Bulgaria. When the action is not in Uruguay/Bulgaria, it is on a submarine which, given Seagal's girth, is not the ideal locale for action scenes involving the Full-Figured Fighter. I imagine they had to enlarge the opening just to get him in there. The premise of the film involves mind-control, ala The Manchurian Candidate. An evil doctor has devised a method to trigger post-brainwashing suggestions through radio waves generated through his hand-held computer and transmitted by satellite. Using his evil iPod, he exercises mind control over various human puppets. The Uruguayan government wants this power. The Uruguayan rebels want this power. Uruguayan corporations want this power. Amazingly, however, nobody outside of Uruguay wants this power, not even from across the bay in Buenos Aires. I guess his evil iPod only works within the range of his wi-fi provider in Sofia - er, I mean Montevideo.
Anyway the movie is grade-Z crap, and almost completely without life. Seagal has never exactly been Samuel L Jackson in the flamboyance department to begin with, but here he mumbles all of his lines more quietly than ever, and his laid-back style is matched by several others in the film. Even the evil scientist is more pragmatic than sinister. The film would be almost totally devoid of flair except for the presence of Vinnie Jones, who plays Seagal's second-in-commando with his usual working class tough guy panache.
But he doesn’t seem harmful or like someone who would say anything mean spirited. As far as those Reviews some of them are from Fans. They just give that vibe off. 
