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To me, this movie is perfection.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

An experimental submarine gets sent on a rescue mission to find out what happened to a previous similar sub. Things go nightmarishly awry when the rescue sub crew discover lethal genetic mutations deep under the ocean.Director Juan Piquer Simon, working from a silly script by David Coleman, keeps the enjoyably inane story moving at a brisk pace, maintains an engaging earnest tone throughout, generates a reasonable amount of tension, and delivers a satisfying smattering of gooey gore. The sincere acting by the game cast keeps this picture humming: Jack Scalia as rugged maverick designer Wick Hayes, R. Lee Ermey as the hard-nosed Captain Phillips, Ray Wise as shifty navigator Robbins, Deborah Adair as Wick's feisty ex-wife Lt. Nina Crawley, Ely Pouget as the sassy Ana Rivera, John Tales as likable smartaleck Joe Kane, and Tony Isbert as no-nonsense pilot Fleming. The modest (not so) special effects possess a certain hokey charm. Joel Goldsmith's robust score does the rousing trick. Juan Marine's slick cinematography provides a fairly polished look. A tacky hoot.

Endless Descent (aka The Rift) is the afterbirth of 1989's underwater explosion of The Abyss, Leviathan, and Deepstar Six. Just as you expect from an apparent bandwagon jumper, it's not as good as those prior flicks. It also takes some time to get going. It has the feel of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea for the most part of the film (and the sub effects are just as hokey). It doesn't turn into a true B monster movie until they finally get out of the damned submarine. Then we get some giant killer seaweed, rubber mutants, and a nice head explosion. I might add that the head explosion was the highlight of the movie. Jack Scalia leads a cast of mostly unknowns and no one here shines. Even R. Lee Ermey and my man Ray Wise seem to be phoning it in. The director's other films include the horrible Pieces and the unwatchable Cthulhu Mansion. So viewer beware.

It's difficult to find anything worth of praise with this movie. It's not the worst picture ever made, but that's not saying a whole lot. The plot is quite incoherent and unbelievable; it seems that the producers wanted to make a space movie, but decided to make it underwater to cash in at the success of The Abyss. In some scenes it seems as if the story indeed was set to outer space initially; the sub has a landing gear, the technicians are worried of a rip in a rubber diving suit at the depths of several kilometers, where the pressure would crush the diver and the suit like an empty beer can. The movie starts out okay, with planning of a recovery of a lost naval sub. After that the movie takes a plunge along with the Siren 2.Effects are so-so. The navigational screens are all done on Commodore 64 (remember, this is 1990, not 1983), the sub is controlled like no other sub ever; instead of control consoles, the officers have keyboards with which they enter long number sequences to control various functions of the ship. The interior of the ship isn't too convincing either.The final scenes leap from awkward to absurd. Welcome to the fifties, you can check your suspension of disbelief at the door.I fail to see enjoyment factor here. The movie is neither good nor hilariously bad MST3k-style (until you get to the final scene), it's like eating a slightly bad apple.

I thought this was a fairly scary movie mainly because there was a lot to it that had you guessing. It was based on this virus or whatever and it spawned all of these different kinds of creatures and really messes up victims in countless different ways. I've seen alot of negative feedback, but I thought it was entertaining and on another positive note, I thought R. Lee Ermey was good in it as well. Pick it up.