Crash Dive

source: Crash Dive

Small budget ripoff of Under Siege (minus Erika Eleniak topless) staring Michael Dudikoff and produced/directed by Andrew Stevens.

Horizontal escape hatches? Plastic name tags on dungarees? Stars on the white shirt of the admiral? The "USS Sarasota"(?) looks like an old Essex class carrier and, until recently, all attack submarines were named after denizens of the deep, not a fictional character. Internal architecture is ALL WRONG for a submarine, especially an attack boat.The arms locker is unlocked, hatches that don't even look like submarine hatches, bulkhead cuts that look like a destroyer, and enough room in berthing to hold a tea dance. I truly cannot believe that the communications suite is not in an enclosed area that can be locked, despite the fact that just about everyone on a submarine has a security clearance. This movie deserves to be relegated to the scrap heap. It's not even as good as U-571, and that movie was horrible.

Some endearing characters played by a few name actors make this a tolerable ride. The great Frederic Forest (Blue Duck in Lonesome Dove and Cook in Apocalypse Now) plays a USN Admiral. However, the lack of competent technical advice made the military side of this submarine action thriller hard to take. On the SSN sub Ulysses, the new XO, we are told, is the youngest in USN history, yet he has --shall we say-- limited social skills. And his immediate subordinate ( a Lt. Commander) derisively refers to him as a "college boy". Problem is ALL USN commissioned officers are college graduates. Hatches are called "doors", lieutenant commanders are called "Lieutenant ", and an ex Navy SEAL also moonlighted as a submarine designer. Prior service guys will find these mistakes--and others like them--a hoot. But if you can say "whatever" and let it ride, it will provide a decent final act for your patience.

This is the first movie to place the DIE HARD scenario on a submarine. I guess that this makes this movie somewhat important historically. It doesn't change the fact that this movie sucks. It was nice to see Catherine Bell ("JAG" TV series). Too bad she had a rather small part and the romance between her and Michael Dudikoff is rather unbelievable. I remember that the "sex scene" at the end is terribly lame. Sex in clothes ?! Come on ! "Crimson tide" , "The Hunt for Red October" , "Under siege" , "Die hard"… All good movies. Watch them. Don't waste your time on "Crash dive". Sadly , it's still one of Dudikoff better movies. I give it 1/10.

I thought that overall the movie was pretty good. A lot of action was in it and not much plot, for what it was I think that the movie turned out really good. Plus I'm a fan of Catherine Bell so I have to say she did a really good job as Lt. Cmdr. Lisa Stark! >

For all the fight scenes in this movie, you'd think they would have devoted some creativity to them...Ooops Sorry, There was no creativity in the entire movie. The director should be shooting video of the South Dakota RV Association annual meeting instead. It really comes across as soft-headed and amateurish to the point of being offensive. They entire thing stumbles in a gooey fog through second rate (why not use first rate?) cliché's. The best they can get out of the few serious actors in it is a sort of half-hearted professionalism, where they recreate (from better memories) some more prestigious and more watchable previous roles. Painful. Turn it off and go clean the garage. You'll have more fun.

'Crash Dive' goes the way of a great many other B action movies, only this one is worse in many regards. Of course that's what appeals to fans of the genre, and if you look at it that way, it won't disappoint. The special effects, especially the climactic missile destruction have to be seen to be believed. They are so bad you end up laughing at them, ruining any intended entertainment value that the movie has to offer. The acting is classically bad, not at all aided by a horrible script. Michael Dudikoff is laughable, they producers could've (and should've) hired a bum off the street to play his character, it would've worked out much better. The rest of the cast, made up entirely out of no names, fares no better, and they appear to have so little interest in the story that they showed up for work, and left, still sleeping. There is one thing that is to be admired in this film is it's ambitions. Never before have I seen a B action movie that actually has any moments of.... sadness, so to speak. 'Crash Dive' does have some of that and, though it miserably fails, it is a refreshing break from the norm. Well maybe not refreshing, but a break all the same. One of the qualities required in any B movie is unintentional entertainment value. 'Crash Dive' certainly has some of that, but the stretches in between the fits of badness is what is not very enjoyable. There are portions that are unimaginably tedious, and that's the reason I'm not going to recommend the movie, even for fans of Dudikoff, if any exist. Stay away. Stay far, far away. 2.5/10

This was a really bad movie. It uses every cliché ever known to man, the 'romance' was even less unbelievable than most bad movies, and it was completely militarily inaccurate. Case in point: Catherine Bell's character Lt. Cmdr Lisa Starks was referred to as "Lieutenant" by all other characters. And she answered the phone with "Lieutenant Stark". Uh hello. A Lt. Cmdr is always addressed as "Commander." You'd think that even without any sort of original story line that they would have at least tried to get the technical details right Don't bother seeing this one. U-571 is much better. And Stealth is much more entertaining even if its kinda cliché too.

This movie was by far the worst Techno-thriller type movie I have ever seen, I suffered through the entire movie to see who was the brave soul that allowed his/her name to be attached to the technical adviser's slot and who the continuity director was. Now I know that everyone is not an accuracy nut like I am, but having been in the navy, it would be nice to have the film stay in the ball park. The hardest thing about this film to believe is the fact that of the 90 minutes that it ran, 45 of it was re-hashed from other movies, and the majority of those 45 minutes were from "Crimson Tide." I guess sampling is alive and well in the movie industry as well.