Nuclear Alert

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.

For all the fight scenes in this movie, you'd think they would have devoted some creativity to them...Ooops Sorry, There was no creativity in the entire movie. The director should be shooting video of the South Dakota RV Association annual meeting instead.

It really comes across as soft-headed and amateurish to the point of being offensive. They entire thing stumbles in a gooey fog through second rate (why not use first rate?) cliché's.

The best they can get out of the few serious actors in it is a sort of half-hearted professionalism, where they recreate (from better memories) some more prestigious and more watchable previous roles.

Painful. Turn it off and go clean the garage. You'll have more fun.

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.

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.

Some endearing characters played by a few name actors make this a tolerable ride. The great Frederic Forest (Blue Duck in Lonesome Dove and Cook in Apocalypse Now) plays a USN Admiral. However, the lack of competent technical advice made the military side of this submarine action thriller hard to take. On the SSN sub Ulysses, the new XO, we are told, is the youngest in USN history, yet he has --shall we say-- limited social skills. And his immediate subordinate ( a Lt. Commander) derisively refers to him as a "college boy". Problem is ALL USN commissioned officers are college graduates. Hatches are called "doors", lieutenant commanders are called "Lieutenant ", and an ex Navy SEAL also moonlighted as a submarine designer. Prior service guys will find these mistakes--and others like them--a hoot. But if you can say "whatever" and let it ride, it will provide a decent final act for your patience.