A dismal kiddie-oriented science fiction adventure film which is utterly forgettable and lame in comparison to the 1959 fantasy classic with James Mason. Although the film sets off well with a foot firmly planted in seriousness and attempted realism, things degenerate so far that we end up getting silly monsters running around and fighting or befriending our team of B-movie heroes. Everything is bigger in this film in comparison to the original classic; there's a ludicrously large ship which resembles a spaceship (which leads one to beg the question, why wasn't this made simply as an outer-space epic?), there's a huge cast of explorers, a PC-friendly multi-ethnic group, most of whom are extraneous to the plot, and the special effects are more elaborate. In fact ALL of the explosions and backdrops are entirely computer-generated, and look cheap, fake and not-for-one-moment realistic. What happened to the matte paintings of the older days? At least they beat this pixelated rubbish hands down.
There's a square-jawed and utterly BORING blond-haired hero guy, played by a worthless non-actor; a jock; a blonde-haired female lead who ISN'T a bimbo for a change but might as well be; a spectacled Chinese professor woman who doesn't actually do anything other than cook a bit of food; the tough black soldier-type who repeatedly goes off the deep end but pulls through in the end, and a female rock-climber who only seems to be around to display ample cleavage. The only actor of note in this mess is A STUDY IN TERROR's John Neville as the stereotyped upper-crust British guy (there aren't any guys around like him anymore, folks) who manages to scrape through without embarrassing himself too much, putting a tongue-in-cheek performance with plenty a raised eyebrow. Also appearing in brief cameos at the opening of the film are F. Murray Abraham as a bearded professor and Sam Raimi as his assistant.
As the film sinks deeper and deeper into unrelenting silliness, more fantastic plot elements occur. There's a race of flat fish-type aliens that have glowing green eyes (achieved by someone shining a green-tinted light blub inside their eyes - yes, it's THAT cheap), a sickeningly cute Bigfoot-type hairy Yeti monster (the director made HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS, go figure) who joins the crew and is played by the guy who was Lurch in THE ADDAMS FAMILY movies, a stupid female computer head which floats around in a bubble, a race of troglodytes who are not nearly as interesting as the name would suggest, and to top it off an ugly monster humanoid which is kept alive through tubes and wakes up at the end of the movie to reveal that it has a human face - obviously they ran out of money for a mask then. The humanoid says things like "Invaders from the Overworld" and "For three millenia I have been left to suffer in this Hell" which gives you some idea of just how scary this guy is. To add insult to injury, there's no ENDING to this film either, instead just a "to be continued" type approach with our explorers jetting off to another adventure. I at least thought they would discover what happened to Abraham or escape back to the surface, but the credits just roll suddenly and leave you incredulous, as does much of this appalling television movie.
There's a square-jawed and utterly BORING blond-haired hero guy, played by a worthless non-actor; a jock; a blonde-haired female lead who ISN'T a bimbo for a change but might as well be; a spectacled Chinese professor woman who doesn't actually do anything other than cook a bit of food; the tough black soldier-type who repeatedly goes off the deep end but pulls through in the end, and a female rock-climber who only seems to be around to display ample cleavage. The only actor of note in this mess is A STUDY IN TERROR's John Neville as the stereotyped upper-crust British guy (there aren't any guys around like him anymore, folks) who manages to scrape through without embarrassing himself too much, putting a tongue-in-cheek performance with plenty a raised eyebrow. Also appearing in brief cameos at the opening of the film are F. Murray Abraham as a bearded professor and Sam Raimi as his assistant.
As the film sinks deeper and deeper into unrelenting silliness, more fantastic plot elements occur. There's a race of flat fish-type aliens that have glowing green eyes (achieved by someone shining a green-tinted light blub inside their eyes - yes, it's THAT cheap), a sickeningly cute Bigfoot-type hairy Yeti monster (the director made HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS, go figure) who joins the crew and is played by the guy who was Lurch in THE ADDAMS FAMILY movies, a stupid female computer head which floats around in a bubble, a race of troglodytes who are not nearly as interesting as the name would suggest, and to top it off an ugly monster humanoid which is kept alive through tubes and wakes up at the end of the movie to reveal that it has a human face - obviously they ran out of money for a mask then. The humanoid says things like "Invaders from the Overworld" and "For three millenia I have been left to suffer in this Hell" which gives you some idea of just how scary this guy is. To add insult to injury, there's no ENDING to this film either, instead just a "to be continued" type approach with our explorers jetting off to another adventure. I at least thought they would discover what happened to Abraham or escape back to the surface, but the credits just roll suddenly and leave you incredulous, as does much of this appalling television movie.