Battle Beneath the Earth

Claustrophobic, by Nature, Story of a "Chinese" Communist Invasion on America's Homeland by Tunneling.

Driving, Supposedly, Futuristic Sci-Fi Boring Vehicles.

That are Shown as Nothing More than Toy-Trucks Painted in Loud Colors with some "Teeth-Like" Appendages.

Moving at a Whopping 8 MPH and Encountering USA Resistance Once in a While to Slow Them as the Home of the Brave Manage to Invent a Rival, Unimpressive Looking (for Movie Buffs) Toy of Their Own.

The Film Starts with some Levity as a "Crackpot" Scientist with Ear to the Ground on a City Sidewalk Says...

"Listen, they're down there like ants, coming to exterminate us."

Turns Out the "Mad Scientist", who was "Locked-Up" in the "Loony-Bin", is the Only One Who can Invent such a Toy.

Unintentionally Funny Lines Pop-Up like...While Exploring with a Fellow, but Female Researcher, B-Movie Swashbuckler Kerwin Matthews, Stops Mid-Stride to ask...

"So how long have you been researching tunnels?".

Another Guffaw is, During the High-Tension Invasion, Discovering the Enemy, a Military-Man Gets on the Phone and Shouts...

"This is a PRIORITY, DOUBLE-SCRAMBLE THE SIGNAL."

Some Colorful Images as Wall-Paper and an Over-the-Top Comic-Book-James-Bond Megalomaniac, Can't Save the Boredom.

Forgotten Vietnam Conflict Propaganda Picture is Not Worth Remembering.

So many opportunities to laugh at this film. Where does one begin? European actors in "yellowface" playing the bad guy renegade Chinese army. (Let's see here -- the bad guy in his lair always has an eccentric pet with him -- okay the guy has a parrot! Check that off the list!)

A film obviously made in Britain pretending to be a Hollywood film, which takes place in Las Vegas (unconvincing cardboard set inside a sound stage, plus some actual second unit stock footage), San Diego (England), Oregon (England again) and Hawaii (more stock footage, plus various underground tunnels (more paper mache sets in a sound stage).

Comically fake nuclear bombs. Laser guns mounted on bulldozers. Giant spinning tape reel computer banks...no wait, those were real at that time.

Bad directing, jump cuts, dropped frames, one establishing shot where the camera drops off the tripod. Awkward staging. Hokey dialog. The whole plot totally ridiculous. Well, it is like a live action comic book. So why should I take any bit of it seriously? Well, the characters seem to be dead serious about the whole enterprise. (That's good. True camp does not work if you give a "nod and a wink" to the audience...though that one scene with the slot machines in the mental hospital was perhaps a bit over the line...)

Yes, fans of The Batman or Green Hornet TV shows of this time period will be right at home here. Plenty of bright primary colors, swish pan transitions, and blaring cool-daddyo-jazz soundtrack. It's all here for the fan of 1960's camp and Cold War pop culture kitsch to treasure as an endemic artifact of its time, the likes of which we may never see again.

Thank goodness.

In Las Vegas, a crowd has gathered to watch Arnold Kramer listening to the ground. He hears something like ants crawling beneath them. The cops arrest him as he tells them to talk to Cmdr. Jonathan Shaw. Shaw led a underwater sea research project which collapsed and killed 27 men due to unknown cause. He goes to the asylum to see his Korean war buddy Kramer who has a crazy idea. The Chinese are tunneling under the country to attack us.

It has a fun opening which reminds me of the Radiohead music video. It's a great scene but it's a long slow downhill slide from that point on. The movie really wants to be too big. Getting the military involved is a bad sci-fi move. It's a 50's sci-fi Yellow Peril B-movie and not a good one. It's a silly action film worthy of Flash Gordon. It's a cartoon. Once they got into a tunnel, one could expect that they follow the tunnel back to where-ever in the network. They should be calling for backup and flood the mine with men. It's all non-sense from a sci-fi comic book.

I knew this movie was going to be silly but I tried to watch it as objectively as possible. In the beginning this still went well but as the movie progressed the story lost more and more credibility, which was not only due to the poor silly story but also due to the poor film-making in general.

The story is not just only silly in terms of its premise but it's also filled with some implausibilities and giant plot holes. Like for instance, why don't the Americans launch a full scale attack after they discovered the Chinese rouge army, that plans to explode nuclear bombs on (or under) American soil? Instead they send about a dozen man, of which some aren't even used to combat situations. And why do the Chinese transport a couple of nuclear bombs without even an escort? The more you start thinking about this movie and its story, the sillier it gets. Perhaps you should try to watch this movie without thinking too much. It's the kind of story material normally used in a simple "Thunderbirds" episode, in which they have to save the world in 20 minutes time.

The story is original and in its core it had potential. However the way everything is brought to the screen is far from impressive or credible. I mean when they basically use giant flashlights for laser-beams, it's hard to take this movie serious. Also throughout the movie they occasionally use multiple sequences multiple times, in some cases even three times the same shot! Due to money or time problems? Anyway, it doesn't do the movie much good.

And why aren't the Chinese main villains being portrayed by Chinese, or even just Asians for that matter. Instead they are now being portrayed by British actors, with make-up, which works far from convincing to say the least. But also the rest of the actors aren't much good. Hard to say if that's entirely their fault, since the characters that they have to play are also far from well developed or even interesting enough to follow.

Guess in a way it's one of those movies that is so bad that it becomes good. The movie still does has its entertaining moments but yet the way the movie is made as a whole makes sure that you can't help to laugh and cringe at this movie.

4/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

This movie is actually fairly entertaining, but mostly because spotting the continuity errors and absence of logic is so much fun. The concept is interesting, but the script is stunningly dumb. I think it is worth one viewing by fans of C-grade sci-fi, but unless you can turn the film into a drinking game - and you could - that is enough.