buffalofran

This movie wants so badly to be a Mel Brooks film (down to casting Bill Pullman 4 years after Spaceballs) or at the least to rival the hack parody humor of Top Secret, but somehow fails to meet that even that low bar of comedy and it seems to be parodying a film/genre that doesn't exist. This film predates the more well known and infinitely more watchable slapstick-submarine-films Mchale's Navy and Down Periscope by a full 5 years. Relying mainly on bad puns and sight gags, the plot is a struggle to follow. Bill Pullman is a sub captain with claustrophobia. Roddy McDowell is Secretary of Defense and... an inexplicable parody of Mr. Rogers? Ned Beatty plays a corrupt Admiral. Joe Namath randomly shows up as another captain. A crew of incompetents is sent off in the USS sub Standard (get it) and intentionally set up to fail by the Admiral (not sure if it's ever explained why) but against all odds overcomes. Add in a dash of cold war competition (they run into the USSR sub Pink November) and you have... Something. Highlight of the film: the repeated shots of the sub in stealth mode where it's transformed into a animatronic whale just because. I honestly think this was bankrolled as one long in-joke by the Navy since the jokes are specific yet toothless and the entire film is an utter slog to get through saved only by the fact that Bill Pullman is really trying his best to save this garbage.

I would 100% agree that Bill Pullman should be more watchable than those mediocre films. I love the man. But this "comedy" is like a short film you make in school that you think is hilarious and then you look back in town years and realize that it's a bunch of cringe worthy pandering to your English teacher. It's like watching that Republican version of the daily show that just hates the government, but less mean. Like it's that awful. Down Periscope at least had a plot and what some would consider "jokes"

Both of these are great because they both gave me different childhood nightmares. Volcano gave me a fear of being trapped in a metro tunnel filling with lava. And Dante's peak made me afraid of dissolving in acid lakes. 10/10

I love this film. It's got at least two enduring lines/scenes that I will never forget (though I've forgotten the rest of the film). One is the dude whose thesis is that at any time there's always a Gene Hackman film somewhere on tv. And never wear a band shirt to the band's show.

My favorite vaguely related story is from Rob Schrab on Harmontown of him missing out on seeing Back to the Future in theaters to go see Transylvania 6-5000 because he loved Jeff Goldblum. "I could see Michael J Fox on tv!" And he remembers absolutely loving it. "Every joke landed"

I'm just getting to the end of this film and there's a damn potted plant installed in a revolving door. Wtf is this set design? Also love that DC metro buses are an entire character in this film. And people aren't allowed to walk away from a dramatic moment without being interrupted and called back at least twice. Jesus Christ figure out how to end a scene Brooks.

This movie was ridiculous. For a second I thought it was being intentionally absurd like the Paul Rudd Amy Poehler film "They Came Together" from the Wet Hot American Summer people. Then it slowly became apparent that, oh God, this terrible, disjointed acting is them playing the film straight. So many inexplicable acting choices. And the Nationals? Why was this set in DC? (I'm not complaining, but it's surreal to see your home team featured in a movie only 5 years after they were created.) Fun fact, according to a contemporary article, Owen Wilson's fictional $14 mill/yr pitcher's salary was more than any Nationals player was getting paid annually in 2010. I do love love love Owen Wilson's amazing bathroom kitted out with a drawer full of individual toothbrushes and a closet of pink Curly W loungewear for all the women he sleeps with so they don't have to make a walk of shame in their dress. Owen Wilson was perfectly cast here because he's the only dude who can believably play such a considerate lothario. All of this rambling to say - I did not understand how this could be such a bad film when just looking at the stars and premise. Paul Rudd + Reese Witherspoon had such great chemistry in Overnight Delivery and here there's nothing. Owen Wilson and Jack Nicholson are acting in two different films. I'm so distracted that I didn't know any character names until like halfway through the movie. And there's so much overdescription of everything by the characters when nothing really happens in this film! But my favorite piece of information about this ridiculous film, is this description of how Brooks came up with the plot: "Brooks began work on the film in 2005, wishing to create a film about a young female athlete. While interviewing numerous women for hundreds of hours in his research for the film, he also became interested in "the dilemmas of contemporary business executives, who are sometimes held accountable by the law for corporate behavior of which they may not even be aware."" Perfect. Superb. I mean that just screams box office hit. Female athletes plus the "dilemmas of contemporary business executives". Really captures the zeitgeist of 2010.