Atlantis Interceptors

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.

What do a Russian nuclear waste laden submarine, the lost continent of Atlantis, a gang of violent post-apocalyptic biker thugs and two interracial Vietnam War buddies have in common? Well, I'm not exactly sure, but Italian cult director Ruggero Deodato nevertheless managed to deliver a fun and exciting exploitation movie featuring ALL of the above elements, and a heck of a lot more. "The Atlantis Interceptors" is an extremely entertaining time-waster, as long as you leave all your sense of intellect at the front door and just enjoy the show. The film exclusively offers plenty of testosterone-packed action, macho characters who swing around large machine guns, silly humor & cheesy dialogs ("If you were an island, where would you hide?") and costume designs that are directly stolen from John Carpenter's classic "Escape From N.Y". The leader of the "Interceptors" hides his face behind a crystal skull and drives a cool car tuned with sharp weapons. The music is pretty awesome, as usual in Italian exploitation treasures, and there a few familiar faces to be found in the cast. It was nice to see George Hilton again, although he aged rather badly since he was the star of copious amounts of Gialli and Spaghetti Western favorites of mine in the late 60's and early 70's. Ruggero Deodato directs with a solid sense of professionalism, but he clearly also realizes this isn't another fundamental effort like his notorious "Cannibal Holocaust". Hey, it's no masterpiece whatsoever but rest assured it deserves a much better rating that the lousy 2.8/10 that currently parades the main page. Just bring your sense of adventure and bad taste. Oh, and whatever you do … remember the valuable moral of this movie: Do NOT dump nuclear waste in the oceans, because before you know it, Atlantis emerges to the surface again and mankind will be overrun by aggressive biker punks. Mmmkay, got that?

From the director of Cannibal Holocaust and the Barbarian Brothers, Ruggero Deodato, comes this Italian action rip-off. These types of movies have a nostalgic feel for me, especially this one. It reminds me of the old mom & pop video stores, before Blockbuster. The action movie section would be filled with row upon row of movies like this one. These would be all the movies I'd love to see but couldn't. C grade movies with B grade video cases. The video cases always looked like some fantasy artist just did the movie poster. The covers would rarely live up to the actual movie, but we could hope. Nowadays, the same type of movies have horrible covers to boot. I am not sure when this developed, but I think it has to do with the ready availability of Photoshop and computers. Now on to the movie.

Miami, Florida 1994.

It actually looks more like Miami, Florida 1984, but who's counting. Over a Super Fuzz like disco theme song, we get the Circle Line tour of Miami via water and air. Two guys (we later find out these are our "heroes") break in through the front door of a house, commit several acts of murder, assault and one act of kidnapping. They escape through the front of the house. We never get any real background on the two men other than the following : Mike (played by a leathery-looking Christopher Connelly) and Washington (but please call him by his new name, Mohammed) are ex-military privateers/mercenaries. The initial mission they were on was for someone called the "Colonel". After getting paid for their services, they are off to Trinidad on a boat for R&R.

At the same time, an attractive Dr. Rollins (Gioia Scola - another veteran of Lucio Fulci's Conquest) is forcibly transported via helicopter to a military research platform at 68 N - 28 W (middle of the ocean) to investigate a crazy artifact that was found when a Russian sub crashed. The artifact is reportedly 12,000 years old. She deduces that the artifact is a "Rosetta stone" for Atlantis, using a pair of tweezers, a small magnifying glass and a slide show. As they attempt to bring the submarine to surface, a giant storm breaks loose which sinks the platform. Also a "model of an island in a plastic bubble" apparently rises from the ocean. Mike and Washington (I mean Mohammed) rescue the survivors of the platform, including the attractive Dr. Rollins. At this point the cabin boy, Manuel, has a minor freak out and jumps ship.

The crew end up back on land and they discover a city that has been totally devastated. It was caused by a group of rejects from the Auto and Gun shows that dress like an offshoot of the Village People's leather guy, with lots of shimmery golden makeup and crazy haircuts. Their leader wears a transparent skull mask, leather vest and neck guard and carries a riding crop (even though he rides in a 50's Ford with the Ben-Hur modification to the wheels). At first he just attacks, but later he reveals the plot.

Apparently they are Atlanteans and they're back. These xenophobic Atanteans are on a Greenpeace mission to kill everyone (except 1 person) and reclaim all that was theirs. It took 52 minutes to find out what this movie was about, but better late than never. We then get Assault on Drug Store 13. Somehow the Atlanteans kidnap Dr. Rollins and it's up to our wrinkly hero to rescue her. How do we do this ??

Step 1 : Commandeer a bus.

Step 2 : Blow up a helicopter from the bus.

Step 3 : Run over the bad guys.

Step 4 : Commandeer a military helicopter.

Step 5 : Fly to Atlantis.

Step 6 : Rescue (involving lots of killing and puzzle solving)

This movie is predictable, once you figure out what's going on. That is only a matter of time since the plot is quite simple. You can expect the typical B/C grade movie pyrotechnics (feels like we're watching the A-Team or something), point and click gun fights (noone aims), models of vehicles and buildings, and the gratuitous dummy kill (a.k.a. close up kill shot).

All the things I've said should not distract you from this laugh-fest. It is quite enjoyable, when not taken seriously. This is never a problem because everyone involved seems to know what kinda of bucket everyone is standing in and its not full of bananas.

-Celluloid Rehab

This film is in a league of it's own: I won't bother to re-state what every other person has already posted regarding the plot. Needless to say it makes no sense what-so-ever in the big scheme of things, but there is plenty of violence and preposterous characters such as the "Crystal Skull" liven things up no end. The best line in the whole film has to be "We can't move; we're immobilised" (by an invisible force field), so how come he can still move his jaw to speak? As I say ultimately in a league of it's own and one of the best examples of how practically any script was considered during the 80's as a potential blockbuster!

Ruggero Deodato's 1983 classic is one of the most entertaining B movies I have ever seen, the story might be out there, but this is one film where the actors and action drive the narrative. Christopher Connelly and Tony King make a great double act and director Deodato was obviously having a good time directing something more entertaining than his previous film THE HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK. Find this film and enjoy, because they don't make them like this anymore!