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Nobody told me Lorenzo Lamas was in this… Argh, no, I’m having flashbacks to Renegade!
Anyhoo, feeble attempts at comedy aside, this is rather obviously a riff on Jules Verne’s
classic tale, except 10,000 leagues deeper…
USS nuclear sub Scotia has gone missing, and is loaded with a whole bunch of nuclear missiles
it shouldn’t be, and on the hunt is a dysfunctional husband and wife rescue team, with a few
helpers – the ex-wife, played by Natalie Stone, being a complete cunt. The Aquanaut 3 (the
rescue vessel) runs into a few problems – the biggest being Captain Nemo and his mobile
aquatic wonder-palace, the Nautilus.
It’s impossible to watch this without comparing it to the Disney version I saw as a kid. And
that version had James Mason and Kirk Douglas in the two lead roles – no such luck - or
charisma, or gravitas - here. And if you don’t buy the Nemo character, the film tanks – and
this one unfortunately does. Nemo has to be a sympathetic sociopath whose rage against the
above-ocean world seems justified, or at least understandable. Here it seems more like a
petulant hissy-fit.
The fantastical charm of the original is sadly lacking here; the tale is presented with none of
the flair and romance of Verne’s novel, more as a mundane political thriller with sci-fi
touches, a la The Hunt for Red October. A poor reference point, perhaps, but one that’s
even mentioned on the cover of the disc. We end up with what was originally a rollicking
adventure yarn, here told without any kind of excitement or tension. Lawlor and Lamas are
more serviceable actors than the roles they’ve been given here – I place the blame squarely
on the heads of the writer and director. But at least it might make people go back to the
source material, which is the best I can say for it.
So Nemo’s hatred of the landlubber world seems to be based on disappointment built on
misanthropy – a billionaire idealist fed-up with how awful the human race has become, and
how crap we all treat each other. His solution? Give up on the rest of the species, move
under the sea and start again (and yes, I did keep thinking of that episode of The Simpsons
where Homer has the same idea and has his little song and dance routine to the tune of that
song from The Little Mermaid) – in Atlantis, which he has conveniently found (I didn’t buy it
in the original, either), using Aronnax’s (Lamas’ character’s) oxygenator (a machine that
can convert water to air) to breathe life into the ancient sunken city – a plot device to
explain why Aronnax is captured and kept alive.
We get all the character stereotypes you’d expect from a US action production: the laconic
trustworthy hero, his faithful sidekicks, the woman you love to hate, the Bond-style villain,
the treacherous cowardly back-stabbing bastard – this could have been handled with so much
more regard for its audience’s intelligence. I was recently reviewing John Woo’s action film
The Killer for another site – that is a film that shows you how to breathe new life into old
clichés. 30, 000 Leagues Under the Sea just re-treads what we’ve seen before, oh so
many times. The only difference between this and all those other moronic countless big-
budget US actioners? It doesn’t star Schwarzenegger or Van Damme.
One glaring plot hole: quite early in the film, one character quite rightly asserts that scuba
gear at the depths we’re dealing with are useless, and so they were all dumped – do can
someone explain to me why certain characters are outside submarines in unpressurised suits
at the end of the film?
This is a difficult film to write about, because there’s nothing much to say about it,
Seriously, this was 85 minutes of me scratching my nuts and wondering what the hell I was
going to write. The acting was pretty awful – rudimentary at best, the script abysmal
(Captain Nemo’s dialogue being especially wretched – I felt sorry for actor Sean Lawlor; he
seemed like a first rate actor trapped in a third rate role), the special effects
underwhelming (particularly considering this must have had a reasonable budget), the cast
were charisma-free. There was nothing to say one way or t’other. I saw 20, 000 Leagues
Under the Sea when I was a kid – this was not much different, besides being less interesting
and engaging. It’s funny – when I was telling my brother about this film and its basic plot, he
scoffed, “30,000 leagues? What, do they end up in the Marianas Trench or something?” My
response: “Umm, actually…yes…” If it’s that predictable to someone who hasn’t even seen
it, imagine my response, having seen it.
One thing I found odd from a film of this budget was how poor the sound was. I don’t have
the best AV hook-up, admittedly, but sound shouldn’t distort quite so frequently, regardless.
And it was usually only on character voices, not sound effects, which struck me as even
stranger.
And I could have done without the deus ex machine ending. It seemed a little too much to
bear. I never bought it in Greek tragedy, as in Medea, and I don’t buy it here.
The CG squids were fun – although under-used (but I have to say that I didn’t like the way
the squids were suddenly controlled, rather than being an arbitrary force of nature as in the
original, which was kind of their point in the first place) - but I’ve gotta say, overall the
whole experience was, well… rubbish. This is no better, and indeed is markedly worse than
the Disney version, and holds even less in the way of thrills and chills. A failure, and also a
perfect example of why you should never try re-making not only films generally, but classics,
specifically.
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