The Direct to Video Connoisseur

I'm a huge fan of action, horror, sci-fi, and comedy, especially of the Direct to Video variety. In this blog I review some of my favorites and not so favorites, and encourage people to comment and add to the discussion. For announcements and updates, don't forget to Follow us on Twitter and Like our Facebook page. If you're the director, producer, distributor, etc. of a low-budget feature length film and you'd like to send me a copy to review, you can contact me at dtvconnoisseur[at]yahoo.com. I'd love to check out what you got. And check out my book, Chad in Accounting, over on Amazon.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Crash Dive (1997)

Photobucket

I don't remember why I went for this. I guess it's another two-word titled Dudikoff film. The thing is, when a film's protagonist is both a former Navy SEAL and an expert submarine designer, it can either be awesome or a straight up dud.

Crash Dive has Dudikoff as a former Navy SEAL who, as a civilian, designs nuclear subs. One of his subs is hijacked, and as it turns out, he's the only one with the unique combination of SEAL training and submarine know-how. He's hesitant at first, but because he's the star of the film, we know he goes in and saves the day.

Photobucket

This was atrocious. Who comes up with this crap? Submarine fights are not cool in movies. Also, one of the big issues is that Dudikoff is boarding the submarine in lieu of blowing it up, saving the crew. That's awesome, except the sub blows up another one with a full crew. Is one crew more important than another? Of course, all of this could've been salvaged had the Dudikoff fight scenes been quality, and they weren't. In fact, they were rather annoying. He'd punch a guy, and then wait to get punched back immediately after. What? Give me Dolph or Seagal or Van Damme who can run through five guys at once. Just plain boring and stupid. A glorified JAG episode.

I'm going to make up for it on the Dudikoff front. Next in my queue from him: Freedom Strike with Tone Loc. Do I need to say anymore? Sorry about this one, though.

Photobucket

Speaking of a glorified JAG episode, this also has Catherine Bell. Man, she looks hot in a Navy uniform. I looked her up on Google Images, and it turns out she looks even hotter in a lot more outfits. That's kinda funny, because in the two films I've reviewed of hers here, this one and Dolph's Men of War, she wears a Navy uniform and an unflattering mercenary outfit respectively.

Do you remember a horrible sitcom on FOX called Titus? The guy who starred in it, Christopher Titus, is in this as the SONAR guy. Big deal. That sitcom was crap, his role in this was crap.

Photobucket

One thing that's always funny is how some of these bad movies decide, instead of just hitting the credits, they'll show one scene from each of the main actors with his or her name and character name on the screen. You know what I'm talking about, you see Michael Dudikoff making a funny face, they freeze it, then put whatever his character name is over his real name. What's great is when they go like ten characters deep, and we see guys that we don't even remember who may have never even been referred to by the name they give for them. Do we care if Brock Chestnut played "Tiny" for two minutes before Dudikoff stabbed him with his own knife?

Stay as far away from this as possible. It sucks hardcore. There are so many more Dudikoff films out there that are so much better. Watch those first, and then watch them again, before you consider this.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115965/

No comments:

Post a Comment