Phantom Below

Look, the special effects were very much 'SYFY' specials and the acting in the lower echelons left a lot to be desired. But the Machiavellian nature of the plot were quite rousing.

OMG this could have been a GREAT movie, on par with Ice Station Zebra, but all the 'responsible' people accepted a sub-par script. You had major talent, pretty good graphics (come on, will improving 2 minutes of CGI video dramatically change 90 minutes of film) and a GREAT concept, and you let the doldrums of the mid-script bring the whole movie down? You had the makings of a picture, that could put Crimson Tide to shame, but the mid-script transition was WEAK!!! Director/producers, you have responsibility to prevent these shortcomings. You were so close to having 'streamed' a B/C movie from being a real hit. But you missed.

Clearly, they had no technical advisor on this film. The ONLY thing that is in any way accurate is the battle lantern you see in an occasional shot.

Although I served 24 years, on 4 ships and 1 submarine, I am no expert, but they could have paid me a meager salary to at least make the uniforms right.

There are far too many errors and inaccuracies in this film to list here. Some of the most glaring are the incorrect and out and out wrong mixture of uniform items which do not match rank. It is like they had a grab bag of uniform items and told the cast to go "put something on" in the hope they might get it right. They didn't. The fact that submarines don't move that way is easy to ignore, since only a submariner would know.

Clearly one of the worst Submarine (or even Navy) films ever made. A little (technical) effort can go a long way.

The worse thing about this movie is why can't the people in Hollywood get the US Navy rating structure correct. The CO of the boat had both Silver Oak leafs (which stands for Commander) on his uniform and Shoulder boards with two 1/2" gold stripes and one 1/4" gold stripe (which stands for LCDR). The COB had LT bars on for an officer but he is the Commands Master Chief Petty Officer. There were many other discrepancies like this in the movie. The acting was decent. Overall it was an okay movie.

Personally, I loved it. I'm sorry for the others that felt it was so bad. My husband and I have watched it several times.

I think Adrian Paul did an excellent job. He's a very good actor in all his films. The other's were pretty good too, but maybe one out of the bunch could have been better.

But other than that, we were thoroughly entertained. I'm sure there are things that stand out to men who have been on subs before that were totally unbelievable. I can understand that. I show horses and almost every horse movie I sit there and pick out what's unrealistic. It's happens with all movies.

It just shows that what's good for one person, might be bad for another. I hated Natural Born Killers and Pulp Fiction - go figure.