Atlantis Interceptors

Some scientists team up with a duo of Vietnam vets to fight make-up wearing biker punks from the lost city of Atlantis which reemerges from under the water due to a sunken Russian submarine's radioactive missiles. Just typing that previous sentence makes my brain hurt and I haven't even gotten to the more nonsensical stuff. Ha.

OK, the plot is ridiculous and the film itself doesn't make a lick of sense, but this b-movie is amazingly fun and doesn't let up on the action. Think of it as a cross between Assualt on Precint 13, and mad max. If you loved those films, are willing to keep and open mind, and can turn your brain off for the duration of the film, you'll like this one a lot as well.

My Grade: A-

Side note: This movie can be found on side A of Disc 2 of the Grindhouse Experience 2 four DVD set, alas it's from an old VHS dub and the picture is far from optimal. Hopefully this unsung b-movie classic will be re-released in a remastered form (ok, probably not, but one can hope)

RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS is one of the biggest genre duplicators to come out of early 80s Italian action cinema. If something was an international hit, it is most likely to be found at some point in here. One need merely look at the US box office reports from 1979-82 to find the workings of this Ruggero Deodato flick. Assorted ingredients include THE ROAD WARRIOR, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, THE WARRIORS, FIRST BLOOD, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, FLASH GORDON, SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, THE FINAL COUNTDOWN, and even a little NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.

But this is part of the fun of RAIDERS (and most Italian films from this era). Picking out what bit came from where is like a cinematic version of "Where's Waldo?" For example, the group of survivors encounters a formally dressed family hiding out in an abandoned house. Hmmmmm? NOTLD perhaps? Of course, Deodato one ups his sources in some cases and has the family immediately become graphic gang fodder. This mishmash approach also allows you an opportunity to see which films had a huge impact on Italian cinema (let's just say George Miller and John Carpenter should be pleased).

The cast is led by Christopher Connelly, who looks like a more energetic Jurgen Prochnow here. Connelly is clearly having fun in the role and even doing some of his own hazardous looking stunts. He is partnered with Tony King, whose character Washington is always insisting on being called Mohammed and delivers some funny lines. For example, when the group land on Atlantis someone says, "If you ask me, we're just heading around in circles." To which Washington…uh, I mean Mohammed replies, "What's wrong with circles?" This type of head scratching dialogue is abundant. Rounding out the cast are low budget familiars Ivan Rassimov, Bruce Baron and George Hilton doing his best "Clark Kent" as a nerdy professor. If you don't blink, you can also catch appearances by future filmmaker Michele Soavi and Deodato himself.

The budget is obviously low (watch for miniatures that would make Sid & Marty Kroft shake their heads) but enough bullets, explosions and mayhem (including a gruesome decapitation) is supplied to help you quickly overlook that fact. Plus, the film opens with the soooooo out of place but incredibly catchy disco theme "Black Inferno" by Oliver Onions (the pseudonym of the De Angelis brothers). Deodato seems to have completely thumbed his nose at the conventional rules of cinema, jumping from day to night and back to day in scenes that are supposed to continuous. Hell, what do I know, maybe things are like that in Atlantis?

Raiders of the Lost Ark ripoff, crossed with a Mad Max ripoff, and a disaster/ horror movie ripoff, with sunken artifacts ripped off and thrown in for added randomness.

An incomprehensible mish mash of strange ideas and action vignettes, this has a sudden hurricane(?) sinking the oil rig carrying scientists who are attempting raise a Russian sub from the ocean floor. After being picked up by a trio of thieves on a boat, they stumble onto the mythical island of Atlantis (raised by the radiation of the Russian nuclear sub(? again)) and its violent, biker gang inhabitants. Who even knew there were bikers on Atlantis? After being attacked by said violent biker gang inhabitants, the group breaks into the island's conveniently heavily armed, abandoned police force, and declare war.

Things get even more confusing after that, but that's irrelevant. There's no sense in even trying to decipher the story, because it's obvious that there isn't one, they were just making it up as they go along. The purpose of this movie was clearly just the action, and there's plenty of that: they're making their getaway on a stolen bus when a helicopter filled with Atlantis' biker gang launch an attack. But our heros don't bother to shoot the helicopter. Instead, they let the thugs jump out of it and onto the roof of the van, where a fistfight ensues not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES, before they climb out of the windows and onto the roof of this moving bus to shoot the helicopter. The bus crashes though a barricade and barely makes contact with two other cars, but they immediately explode and burst into a ball of flames.

And there's that stone statue thingie that shoots lasers out of its glowing red eyes.

This can actually be fun, if you turn your mind completely off, and enjoy its absurdities, hilariously awful (and completely nonsensical) dialogue, and overly dramatic death scenes; many of the deaths are accompanied by yells of "Ay ayeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

A disclaimer in the closing credits reads: "All events and characters depicted in this photoplay are imaginary and any resemblance to actual persons and events is unintentional and purely coincidental". Imaginary?

The Raiders of Atlantis is really something special, i have watched a lot of strange, bizzare and trashy movies, especially from the 80s but this one beats em all. It has the most bizzare story that Atlanteans are Biker Punk Gang and they want to wipe out whole humanity, this story can only be written in the 80s. the whole movie is like you take some hallucinogenic drug and had a trip. A lot of action, explosions, gore, killings and with great synthisizer driven music in the background. The soundtrack is one of the best from the b-movies, total proto-synthwave stuff. Charachters are enjoyable Christopher Connelly and Tony King does the great job as main protagonist, also supporting cast has done solid job. I would say that the movie looks like a strange mixture of Assault On Prectinct 13, Big Trouble In Little China (note that Big Trouble is filmed three year later maybe Carpenter got some ideas watching this one) and Mad Max with some Italian twist and humour. This is must watch for all fans of cheesy and bizzare 80's stuff, definetely one of the best.

From Ruggero Deodato, the director who gave us the incredibly powerful and disturbing Cannibal Holocaust comes this lighter weight action yarn from 1983.

It utilises the intriguing central premise of the resurfacing of Atlantis as a catalyst for mass violence when the descendants of the aforementioned long lost continent, who are now living amongst us, take to the streets in heavily armed gangs and set about annihilating the rest of mankind.

The future of the human race appears to rest in the hands of a small group of people who escape the initial wave of urban anarchy whilst they are out at sea.

But returning to dry land how can so few defeat so many? The above plot provides the basis for scene after scene of urban shoot outs and ferocious pitched battles against the marauding hordes of leather clad, painted faced bikers as our heroes fight for survival in a world that has descended into chaos.

A great assembled cast of B-movie favourites including Christopher Connelly, Tony King and Ivan Rassimov head this fairly enjoyable effort that is certainly never dull and boasts some admittedly very exciting scenes ala. Assault On Precinct 13.

Added to this some great stunt work, with some very noteworthy scenes involving a mini bus and you have a solid 90 mins or so of action entertainment.

However……it has to be said that the film makes virtually no sense at all! It appears to have been cobbled hurriedly together sans any logic which sadly serves to seriously undermine it.

It's almost as if, in a desperate attempt to cramp in as many action scenes (copied from other movies) into one picture, the makers forgot to provide a plot that links the said scenes together.

The end result is a decidedly disjointed affair to put it mildly.

However, I don't wish to be too hard on the film for viewed as an action movie it certainly delivers the goods by the bucket load.

As a final note, fans of those lovable cut and splice ninja movies from the 1980's as produced en masse by Godfrey Ho and Joseph Lai will delight to see non other than Bruce Baron as the head villain in this, although he spends most of his screen time beneath a 'crystal' mask.