Battle Beneath the Earth

This a British film attempting to pretend to everyone and fooling no one that it`s a big budget Hollywood movie . It starts with a couple of Las Vegas cops with laughably bad American accents getting a report of a disturbance . Cut to some stock footage of Vegas with the cop car stopping beside a sidewalk that was obviously filmed inside a studio . Every expense has been spared with BATTLE BENEATH THE EARTH . Despite being set in the 1960s all the American troops have firearms and wear kit from the second world war while those nasty Chinese commies have death rays that are obviously flash lights , and in order to save on importing Chinese actors we have caucasians playing oriental villains . Why couldn`t they have employed Burt Kwouk ( Kato from THE PINK PANTHER movies ) I ask myself ?

There is some enjoyment to be had from BATTLE BENEATH THE EARTH since it`s one of those " So bad it`s good " type films complete with absolutely ridiculous scenes that defy logic such as GIs` being able to defuse atomic bombs and people managing to outrun the blast from a nuclear explosion

A classic. Utterly dismal. This film must have been made with the change left over from the first Blair Witch project. The rock wall tunnels practically wobble, truck headlights pretending to be rock boring lasers. Englishmen pretending to be Chinese with silly slant eyes - you know the style seen in every lame 60 or 70's movies - how hard is it to hire real Chinese as actors? If the effects stink they are fragrant compared to the plot. At one point to detect the Chinese tunnels the military orders the US to go silent for Gods sake; like it was a submarine on silent running! The whole things is so bad as to be camply hilarious.

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.

The picture concerns upon Chinese communists (leader is Martin Benson as general goes berserk and who places atomic bombs) trying to destroy United States via some continued series of underground tunnels , made all the way from China under the Pacific Ocean , but some US Navy soldiers , scientists , military (Kerwin Mathews , Al Mulok , Ed Bishop) and a gorgeous geologist (Vivienne Ventura) discover the scheme and go underground to repel the invaders .

It's a pulp movie of science-fiction genre in which there are noisy action , suspense , intrigue , tension and results to be quite bemusing . The history deals with nasty Chinese people and American patriots who fight strongly to vanquish them . In spite of lack luster and budget is quite agreeable and fun . The plot is almost ridiculous and senseless but it's developed in fast moving and numerous surprises and that's why it is amusing . The movie has precedent in those films of the 30s with Fumanchu (by Sax Rohmer) and Boris Karloff as heinous starring and nearest the series of the 60s (produced by Harry Alan Towers with Christopher Lee as the Chinese baddie) in which the ¨yellow danger¨ was a fearful enemy . The motion picture takes part of a genre which in the 80s attained splendor , thus : ¨Red Dawn¨ (by John Milius with Patrick Swayze) , ¨Invasion USA ¨ (by Joseph Zito with Chuck Norris) and ¨Amerika¨ (by Donald Wyre with Kris Kristofferson) where the communists -Russkies generally- execute invasion on America . Rating : Average but entertaining .

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

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