Crash Dive

I saw an episode of Good Witch and was looking up Catherine Bell and saw she was in this. Ironically I don't even remember her appearing in this mess. Pretty sure she wasn't even on the sub, despite the billing.

This was a bad movie. The technical flaws were obvious even to a civilian who never served on a missile boat. And that wasn't even the worst part. The story was written by Xerox Machine from Under Siege.

In Under Siege we had ex-SEAL Segal putting down the Slim Jim's long enough to defeat bad guys headed by Tommy Lee Jones who took over a battleship. This had ex-SEAL Dudekoff putting down his daughter long enough to defeat bad guys consisting of D-listers with Russian accents. Dudekoff is no Segal, which is bigger insult than it sounds, and his acting was on the order of the tension created by whether he would make it back in time for his daughter's piano recital.

This movie had everything I hate about one-man-army action movies. The bad guys killed ten times their number in good guys before they're finally stopped by our hero. It's great that they're eventually stopped, sure, but I'd prefer my fictional hero to prevent further loss of life from the moment he enters the fray. A one-man-army cartoon character who is continually outsmarted and outmaneuvered while more people die is just another James Bond. Been there, done that.

As far as I know, this is the first movie to place the DIE HARD scenario on a submarine. Michael Dudikoff plays James Carter, an ex-Navy SEAL (what else?) who reluctantly agrees to save the day when terrorists seize control of a nuclear submarine, the same sub he designed. The movie has a good deal of action that keeps the film going, and the production values (for a B-movie) are pretty good. The use of footage from the producers' other movies for the film's underwater sub action and the special effects of a missile destroying part of a New York skyscraper are a bit distracting, but everything else is pretty well done. It would have been nice to have J*A*G*'s Catherine Bell in a bigger part. The story isn't deep or anything, but it has a good pace that never drags, the action scenes are well-choreographed, and the music has a big-budget feel that helps the film. All-in-all, one of Dudikoff's better 90s films. Look for TITUS star Christopher Titus as the sub's comedic, celebrity-impersonating sonar man.

This non-entity of a movie doesn't deserve a long review, so here are my brief thoughts. You will have seen every single element of this movie done better elsewhere. It is Die Hard and Under Siege on a submarine, yet so much worse than any of the films in either series. It is utterly predictable and totally unmemorable apart from the single worst shootout I have ever seen in a movie. This shootout manages to be completely mesmerising due to the total lack of jeopardy and the catastrophic editing. It is staggeringly poorly done, however, for this hilariously bad sequence I have added an extra star.

A movie to see if you are not in the mood for some heavy thinking. There is plenty of action, the usual amount of dead people, and some pretty decent special effects. The movie is your standard terrorist movie, although it has the twist that these terrorists are working from inside a nuclear submarine. Since large parts of the plot are not too believable, the viewer should watch this in a relaxed state, just to enjoy some adrenaline, and not pay attention to the odd things that sometimes happen (like the guy can swim faster than the sub or a laptop computer that melts like it was made of foam). All in all, enjoyable if you are bored.

'Crash Dive' goes the way of a great many other B action movies, only this one is worse in many regards. Of course that's what appeals to fans of the genre, and if you look at it that way, it won't disappoint. The special effects, especially the climactic missile destruction have to be seen to be believed. They are so bad you end up laughing at them, ruining any intended entertainment value that the movie has to offer.

The acting is classically bad, not at all aided by a horrible script. Michael Dudikoff is laughable, they producers could've (and should've) hired a bum off the street to play his character, it would've worked out much better. The rest of the cast, made up entirely out of no names, fares no better, and they appear to have so little interest in the story that they showed up for work, and left, still sleeping.

There is one thing that is to be admired in this film is it's ambitions. Never before have I seen a B action movie that actually has any moments of.... sadness, so to speak. 'Crash Dive' does have some of that and, though it miserably fails, it is a refreshing break from the norm. Well maybe not refreshing, but a break all the same.

One of the qualities required in any B movie is unintentional entertainment value. 'Crash Dive' certainly has some of that, but the stretches in between the fits of badness is what is not very enjoyable. There are portions that are unimaginably tedious, and that's the reason I'm not going to recommend the movie, even for fans of Dudikoff, if any exist. Stay away. Stay far, far away.

2.5/10