Rating summary

Movie		0.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.0

Attack From Beneath Blu-ray Movie Review

This low blow lands on the funny bone.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman October 19, 2013

Atlantic Rim, a.k.a. Attack from Beneath and a.k.a The Asylum's ripoff of Pacific Rim, may be the finest example of unintentional comedy ever unleashed to the movie watching public. The picture is awful on every level -- seriously, there's not one single thing the movie does well, except, maybe, keep the runtime under ninety minutes and show a hint of adequate special effects late in the film -- but it's every bit the classic of the unintended kind, an endlessly humorous assault on the funny bone that easily dethrones what might have been the long-sitting king of such films, Cyclops. And every self-respecting movie fan should see it. Attack from Beneath is infectiously bad in a highly watchable laugh riot sort of way. It's impossible to tune it out, turn it off, or in any way become distracted so as not to miss the next big flub, the next awful line delivery, the next ridiculous development, the next incomprehensible plot advancement. Bad movies just don't get any better than this.

Baywatch: Robots.

A Gulf Coast oil rig is leaking its black gold into the surrounding waters. A submersible vessel is sent to investigate and discovers...something out of the ordinary that attacks the rig. On the coast, it's Mardi Gras time. Revelers are partying hard, but the celebration is cut short when three military hotshots -- Jim (Treach), Red (David Chokachi), and Tracey (Jackie Moore) -- are called into action to pilot experimental robots as tall as large buildings to battle an undersea creature that is threatening civilians. They're both admonished and praised for their actions by General Hadley (Graham Greene) and must continue the fight elsewhere in the country and under threat of total annihilation, and just not from the monsters.

Attack from Beneath is no ordinary Asylum movie. Oh, make no mistake about it, everything in the movie just screams "Asylum" but it's all taken to another level, another galaxy, another universe of awful. The only Asylum film that even comes close to matching it is Alien Origin. That one doesn't even have a plot (this one does) and it features an ending that feels, quite literally, tacked on to try and give it some meaning and a connection to another film. It's also mayor of dullsville. Attack from Beneath at least isn't quite so fundamentally insulting, but the level of general bad is so amplified that this one really takes the cake and finds a level of fun that's really quite extraordinary. For starters, and there's really no good place to start (but thankfully there is an end), the movie never, ever, not once stops pumping music on top of the picture. It's an old Asylum trick and one that just doesn't work, trying to create tension out of thin air, because Lord knows there isn't any created through the script, the performances, the "drama" of it all, or even the special effects. Those visual effects range form abysmal to surprisingly, albeit only once or twice, passable. The robots and monsters usually look like something out of a conceptual pre-visualization animatic from the aforementioned Transformers or Pacific Rim. That's the norm for Asylum, but to the studio's credit things do at least appear to improve during the final act when the robots fly around the monster, even though it looks like the same two or three shots recycled over and over (speaking of, watched for shots recycled from other Asylum films as well as in-movie "promotions" for other Asylum titles).

All of the performances suffer in some way, from the comically over-the-top to the flat-out lazy. Considering what made it into the movie, there's a decent chance that, unless some major flub occurred (a.k.a. the gag reel that's included with the Blu-ray), there were no reshoots of scenes in hopes of capturing a better performance from the actors. Graham Greene's performance could serve as the dictionary definitions of "phoning it in" and "cashing a paycheck." Never in an Asylum movie has there been a main character so flat, so completely out of it, so uncaring, so stiff, so devoid of emotion. It's a shock he's not caught looking at his watch in every scene. He's obviously capable of far better -- he's proven that time in again in countless other pictures -- but the performance, even considering the terrible script, just screams of laziness. At least John Rhys-Davies and Mario Van Peebles in similar parts found a hint of a spark (and literally just a hint in Davies' case). As for the other main cast members? They're like kids having fun in front of the camera. The performances are full of vigor but are so over-the-top that one can't help but find a certain charm in them, at least when their gut-busting deliveries and physical performance antics aren't otherwise distracting from their enthusiasm. There's something humorous every time they're on screen, be it alone in the robot or together on the street. In one scene they literally do a victory dance on top of the bodies of dead civilians. They come across as flat-out goofy in the "slow motion hero walk" shot that's agonizingly long to the point that, yes, it becomes quite the comical sight to behold as the audience soaks it in from a variety of angles. Watch for what might be the most hilarious shot of the movie in which Treach's character carries a young girl, piggyback, to "safety" in what may be the most overplayed shot in the history of motion pictures.

All of those are good and awful, but it's perhaps the small things that really help make Attack from Beneath a behemoth of the proud little world of the comically awful fare. It's impossible not to laugh at a number of small things, not even flaws but rather the movie's efforts at phony drama and ridiculous dialogue. Somewhere in the climax, there are some hurried, "frantic" shots of someone using a computer mouse and dialing on a telephone keypad. Those may sound benign enough but the execution is poor and, mixed with the ridiculous "dramatic" music and considering their place in the film, they come across as two of the best of the bad moments in the movie. There's another fun moment when the three-star general who supposedly enjoys the clearance to view even the most sensitive top-secret documents learns of something that was "classified" even from him by his, for lack of a better word, lackey with an eyepatch. The dialogue never helps the plot along, nor does the rushed feel that, again, seems like it's meant to create tension and drama where neither exist, even in those times when they doesn't need to exist. There's zero flow to anything in the movie. Battles seem to end as abruptly as they begin, character dynamics sometimes feel uncertain, and the action is confusing at best. And, as the late Steve Jobs used to famously say, "one more thing," and it's for all of the casting directors out there. If the script calls for an actor to use the line "get on the horn" or some variation of "horn" as in "telephone," don't cast Graham Greene. He's used his lifetime quota of the word in this movie. In fact, give him the best remaining part in the film. After this monstrosity, he deserves something better.

Attack From Beneath Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Attack From Beneath features the usual Asylum transfer, i.e. a higher end presentation sourced from a digital shoot. The HD video photography appears very crisp and nicely defined, certainly a little flat but showing very strong detail throughout. Facial textures are most impressive, as are complex clothing details and street-level odds and ends, including building façades and pavement. The special effects look rather sloppy, but then again that's more a result of the source and less (and probably not at all, really) a problem with the Blu-ray transfer itself. Colors are fine and quite lively in spots (particularly the Mardi Gras parade seen with the opening titles). They're very well balanced and hold up nicely throughout. Bright skies tend to wash out into a rather milky grayish-white color, however. The image does display occasional banding and some jagged edges on lower resolution and fuzzier shots. Generally, however, this a very nice, fairly even transfer from The Asylum.

Attack From Beneath Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Attack From Beneath rises to the occasion with a rather impressive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. In a general sense and across all of the basic elements, the track produces a wide, fairly enveloping listen. Though it's certainly not up to the level of intensity; though it doesn't capture the same huge, cinematic sensations; though it's absent real-life subtleties; it does rather well in creating a sonic world of robot vs. monster mayhem on a budget level. In fact, the soundtrack is probably the highest quality piece of the Attack from Beneath puzzle. Water heavily splashes in aquatic battle scenes and spills from every speaker. Explosions and other deep action effects are presented with authority. That constant musical delivery is fairly even, whether booming front-and-center or reduced in volume, a bit, giving way to dialogue. There is a moment when a heavy sound effect early in the film completely overwhelms dialogue to the point that an entire line is lost. It has the feel of a technical snafu but seems intentional. Otherwise, this is a fairly impressive, occasionally dominant soundtrack from The Asylum.

Attack From Beneath Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Attack From Beneath contains the usual brief Asylum supplemental content.

• "Making Of" Featurette (HD, 4:52): Cast and crew talk up the film.
• Gag Reel (HD, 2:21).
• Trailers: Additional Asylum titles.

Attack From Beneath Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Everyone should see Attack From Beneath. It's the undisputed champion, the king of the hill, the world heavyweight title holder of the "so bad it's good" unintentionally humorous film. Every line, every shot, every visual, every over-exaggerated action is worth the price of admission, and altogether they make for an instant classic of cinema misery. It's one of the breeziest and easiest-to-watch films ever created and it's bound to become the funniest movie in every collection. The Asylum's Blu-ray release of Attack from Beneath offers dependable video and audio. A couple of brief extras are included. Highly recommended just because it has to be seen to be believed, and there's plenty of replay value here, just not the sort of replay value the studio and filmmakers probably envisioned.