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 emember
the first time you saw fat Elvis? How saddened you
were to see someone truly great reduced to a
chubby mess, their remaining talents overshadowed
by their unwieldy physical condition? That's how I
feel when watching any Steven Seagal movie made in
the last four years, where his subtle style of
ass-kicking baddies in films like "Under
Siege" is a far cry from what he is doing
now. At the moment, Seagal doesn't look like he
can walk properly, let alone dish out the pain
like he used to. Yet, like fat Elvis, Seagal shows
no signs of relenting, as this year alone the
ponytailed one has churned out five movies, all
into the direct-to-video market. Needless to say,
the former master's latest straight-to-video flick
"Submerged" is not the best of the
bunch.
Steven Seagal stars as Chris Cody, the world's
best (and most out of shape) mercenary, who, along
with his gang of ex-army vigilantes, is let out of
prison to fight a group of terrorists. These
terrorists use mind-control devices to
"program" random people into doing their
dirty work, and have brainwashed a group of
hostages that Cody's team are sent to rescue. The
result: the mercenaries are stuck in a submarine
(hence the title), trying to escape from said
terrorists with a bunch of brainwashed
"zombies" that want to kill them. Just
another day at the office for an out of shape
mercenary!
Despite its overall lack of quality, there are
some good things that can be said about
"Submerged". For one, it has Steven
Seagal and a "zombiefied" Gary Daniels
("Fist
of the North Star") duking it out. If
they put that on the DVD case, action junkies from
around the globe would surely buy this movie,
regardless of how short the fight actually is (it
runs just over a minute). The supporting cast are
also surprisingly good, including ex-soccer player
Vinnie Jones ("Mean
Machine"), "Lost" star
Christine Adams, British actress/glamour model
Alison King, and the aforementioned Gary Daniels,
whose acting is abysmal but nevertheless is always
watchable.
Although the supporting cast does save the movie
somewhat from the poor direction of Anthony Hickox
("Full
Eclipse") and the current flabbiness of
Seagal, "Submerged" is still ruined by
its astonishing lack of originality. The story
kicks off with a series of random, surreal images
flashing onscreen, illustrating that if you can
imprint pictures straight into the brain, then you
can control someone's mind. Forget for one moment
that the whole "mind control could really
happen" angle has been played in literally
thousands of movies already, and you'll still end
up with the undeniable fact that each one of the
weird images is stolen directly from "The
Ring". What makes the theft doubly
annoying is that the filmmakers try to cover it
up. For instance, one black and white scene has a
woman standing on the edge of a cliff ready to
throw herself off, but instead of a well in the
background, it's a windmill. Real subtle, guys.
Nice.
I might
be able to overlook a "Ring" rip-off
(seeing as how "The Ring" is probably
the most borrowed-from movie since "The
Matrix" and its bullet-time effect), if
it weren't for the fact that virtually every other
aspect of "Submerged" is also stolen
from other movies. Alison King's Damita character
is Lara Croft without the interest in archaeology
(even though, admittedly, King certainly does a
pretty good Angelina Jolie impression), Vinnie
Jones is playing himself minus the soccer,
Christine Adams' "smart, sexy seductive black
female" character has been done to death
(remember Halle Berry in "Swordfish"
or Gabriella Union in "Cradle
2 the Grave"?).
"Submerge's"
cinematography also proves that some people
haven't gotten over "The Matrix's" look
just yet. Even the settings are unoriginal.
There's a dam reminiscent of the one in
"Goldeneye", the claustrophobic sub
itself is somewhere between "Das
Boot" and "Aliens",
and the final scenes take place in a sunny Latin
country straight out of Robert Rodriguez's "Once
Upon a Time in Mexico". Nothing in
"Submerged" feels new, which makes you
wonder why you didn't choose to watch the films
that provide fodder for this mediocre rip-off
instead.
The film's star Steven Seagal should seriously
consider retiring, and leave his reputation
somewhat intact, rather than continue to sully it
with a slew of bad to mediocre to below average
B-movies. "Submerged" is a forgettable
time-waster that should only be remembered as 90
minutes worth of explosions, explosions, and more
explosions. |
