Submerged

Paramount's low budget action film directed by b-movie favorite Fred Olen Ray (Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, Armed Response, The Tomb, Cyclone, Warlords, Active Stealth, Scream Queen Hot Tub Party, Haunting Fear, & Invisible Mom 1/2).

It's loaded with all kinds of familiar faces which includes Fred Williamson (MASH, Black Caesar, Hell Up in Harlem, Inglorious Bastards, New Barbarians, Bronx Warriors, Vigilante, Black Cobra Trilogy, From Dusk Till Dawn, & Original Gangstas), Tim Thomerson (Trancers, Dollman, Near Dark, & Fade to Black), Dennis Weaver (High Noon, Duel, & Touch of Evil), Nicole Eggert (Baywatch, Blown Away, & The Demolitionist), Brent Huff (Armed Response, Oblivion 2, & Black Scorpion), Yvette Nipar (Doctor Mordrid, Brisco County Jr., & Robocop), Stacey Travis (Phantasm II, Hardware, Ghost World, Bandits, & Intolerable Cruelty), Fredric Lehne (Lost, Ordinary People, Dallas, & Men In Black), Maxwell Caulfield (Oblivion 2, Empire Records, Waxwork 2, & Sundown), Michael Bailey Smith (Hills Have Eyes 1/2, Monster Man, Black Mask 2, Men In Black 2, Best of the Best 3, Fantastic Four, & Nightmare on Elm Street 5), Brinke Stevens (Slumber Party Massacre, Nightmare Sisters, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, & Haunting Fear), and well.... Coolio (Judgment Day & Gangland) who wasn't that impressive in this independent action flick.

Regardless, this film wasn't as bad as others were claiming it to be on here especially for it's very low budget. Lots of action & the cast really elevates everything here for this cheap production. It was very entertaining & really fun so it did it's job here. It was definitely worth the cheap price I paid for it. Turn off your brain & don't take this one seriously. Check it out!!!!

This movie was one of the worst I have ever seen (not including anything by or with Pauly Shore). I couldn't believe that a film could actually be THIS bad!

Coolio has to be the single worst actor (again, not including Pauly Shore) to ever "star" in a movie. The temptation to hit the STOP button during this movie was huge (in fact, if there was a THROW IN THE TRASH button on my VCR, I would have been inclined to press that).

Do yourself a favor, and do something more interesting than watch this movie, like watching the grass grow, or watching golf on TV.

The movie was your average low budget film. But the part that got me the most was the blatant scenes stolen from Airplane. It was so obvious it makes you wonder who they were trying to fool. Splicing scenes from a movie made in the 70's into a movie made today and trying to be taken seriously, is pathetic.

Submerged (2000)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Low-budget action picture has a plane hijacked so that a group of terrorists can steal a missile launching code. The plane ends up crashing into the ocean and sinking to the bottom so it's up to some Navy Seals to try and save the passengers.

If the plot sounds familiar then you've probably seen AIRPORT '77. That disaster film is one of my favorite pictures so when I heard about this movie I just had to check it out. Director Fred Olen Ray is a master at low-budget movies and he at least made this one look like a professional production but sadly there's really not too much here to enjoy.

THe biggest problem with the film is the fact that there's just no drama, tension or suspense. The film is well-made, like I said, but at the same time one wishes that there was some sort of connection to the characters that made you care about them or that the film really made you fear that some sort of disaster was going to happen. None of that happened so we were left with a rather flat film.

The film does have some familiar actors including Dennis Weaver, Fred Williamson, Nicole Eggert and even Coolio. Of the cast, Weaver comes off the best playing the rich redneck who likes to drink. The film does offer a couple nice action scenes but the scene with the plane being raised from the ocean is actually footage from AIRPORT '77.

Okay, I just had to sound off on this one... Like a tremendous mental-gimp, I've just sat through this film in its entirety.

You'll note that the trivia section of IMDB points out that portions of the raising of the 747 were "borrowed" from Airport 1977. This really doesn't scratch the surface... Virtually all exterior shots of the plane skimming the ocean, landing in, sinking, and even the at-rest shots are borrowed from Airport '77. All of the "raising" shots are pulled from '77, including most of the interior flooding clips, with the exception of Dennis Weaver's drowning. I couldn't help but wonder if Olivia Dehavilland might come floating by at any moment, or maybe a "dead" Tom Sullivan. Another eye-roller: Dennis Weaver's name in this film is Stevens, which is to compensate for the fact that Airport '77's plane is owned by the Stevens Corporation (headed by Jimmie Stewart of course).

This is a veritable calvalcade of actors who don't work much, or at least haven't worked in a while, which might have been the first clue that it was going to be a real stinker.

I've rated this film a 2 - It's quite worthy of a "1", but if this film can't offer any other redeeming quality, at least somebody helped Coolio, Max Caulfield, Nicolle Eggert, and Dennis Weaver make their car payments that month!