Dark Descent

Rating:
Summary: PLUNGE INTO OBLIVION
Review: DARK DESCENT is about as exciting as watching someone make banana pudding. Filmed in Czechloslovakia, most of the actors and crew's names end in "v". Which wouldn't be so bad if they could at least ACT. Dean Cain, he of Superman fame, bullies his way through the mess, chewing his gum, and wincing after he gets shot in the leg. Scott Wiper who plays his jealous comrade mercifully disappears once he quits, but the movie never says what happens to him. The movie starts off with Cain and Wiper (sounds like a law firm, don't it?) facing some really nasty guys who are obviously attacking the women in this undersea mining plant. Nothing is ever explained as to why they are doing this, but Cain kills them all but one, a nasty guy who plans revenge. Meanwhile, many of the crew members are committing suicide, and Cain is investigating. (Excited yet?). Of course, it all culminates in a kind of underwater HIGH NOON when the bad guy who promised to come back, does so with two other goons, and chase Cain around the plant for a while. There is nothing exciting about any of this, as the direction is wooden and the acting abysmal.
Try THE ABYSS or GHOST SHIP or any other undersea film, and you'll do much better than this waste of celluloid.

Rating:
Summary: Outland on the cheap
Review: I attempted to watch DARK DESCENT but failed. I saw enough to recognize that this seemed to be a remake of OUTLAND which in turn was a Sci-Fi translation of HIGH NOON. Both OUTLAND and HIGH NOON are classics with great casts and well crafted scripts, but DARK DESCENT is a remake of these classics only in the sense that Frankenstein's Monster is a recreation of humanity. Some of the parts are there, but you don't want to take them home. There is a lot of dialogue, none memorable, and little action. The plot pacing favors insomniacs. Many of the actors are unknown even in their own native countries, whatever they may be. Let's not forget the special features, which consist of a menu that offers a single "choice": "play movie", thus demonstrating that the menu's only useful function is to demonstrate that it has no useful function. I gave the movie one star because it is better than daytime television, but my advise is get OUTLAND and watch the best Space Western ever made.