IMDb metadata is 1 hour and 14 minutes of Dali time, rated 3.9 by 731 cinemitizens.
Verdict: Stay home.
Enrico Fermi frightened a generation of school children with the prediction that nuclear explosions would ignite the atmosphere and incinerate the Earth. This film starts with that assumption.
A team of scientists decides that to survive humanity must burrow into the Earth. Mole-ville here they come. This is a private enterprise, and though it attracts much press coverage, it is underfunded. Most of the ink is derogatory as the Fourth Estate once again meets the standard of irresponsible journalism.
However the hoo-hah attracts a wealthy layabout with a big smile who puts up the money provided he can go along for the ride. While all other members of the crew are doctored scientists, he is a golden brick. Tensions surface but taking him is the only way to proceed. All aboard the Cyclotram (which has since been used to drill subway tunnels in Athens, Istanbul, and London).
We see schematics. We see dials. Levers. Switches. Gizmos. Instruments. What is worse is that there are expositions.
We get excerpts from doomsday lectures to thousands who — contrary to the natural law of the lecture theatre — seemed awake.
We get bored stiff. The players are earnest and it is presented with urgency, but none of it is engaging.
The team consists of a small group of fifty year old, near-sighted, round shouldered, shuffling PhDs, and one virile ex-Marine engineer, who is there to fight with the Gold Brick over the attentions of the one female in the crew who is much younger than the other PhDs. She is the nutritionist who has made the dietary pills off which they will live as they bore and bore and bore. ‘Boring!’ cried the fraternity brothers.
Is the aim to find the underground cavern of Edward Lytton Bulwer’s Vril (‘The Coming Race’ [1871]) where humanity can become Moles. Or is the goal to rescue John Agar from “The Mole People’ (1956), reviewed elsewhere on this blog? If the latter, forget it.
They enter the underworld by sailing to Carlsbad Caverns and descending into a dormant volcano. First up then down, down, down. What could go wrong? Ever try sailing to New Mexico?
At least they are safe from the Sy Fy scriptwriters nemesis, the meteor. But things do go wrong. The Gold Brick is annoyingly supercilious and careless. There are speeches about bending nature to human will. ‘As if,’ said Georg Hegel.
But then….poison gas, volcanic eruptions, dandruff, contaminated water, and annoying remarks bedevil progress.
Some of the doctors croak and the Gold Brick matures. His growth was well done, and of course the lady doctor warms to him now that the ex-Marine is toast. Gold Brick is the only one under fifty left anyway.
They go down, down, down. Much to the disappointment of the marketing department they find not a single enlarged lizard creature to grab the doll for a picture on a lobby card. No stunt men in rubber suits were in the budget. Instead there is an oppressive journey into darkness. In fact, it is much closer to the text of Jules Verne’s ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’ (1864) than the big budget version of it in 1959 with that toothy crooner in it. Not reviewed elsewhere on this blog.
Spoiler ahead.
Moreover, it is resolutely downbeat. Nothing good happens. ‘Yawn,’ agreed the fraternity brothers. They — the players not the brothers — are submerged in an ocean 2500 miles underground! Not good. Doomed. But then the scriptwriter reached for an up-current and it propels the craft to the surface (stock footage of Pismo Beach follows) and they are saved. Delighted to be back where they started from, they throw open the hatch.
What was that about decompression? The End.
All of that and they are back on top where Fermi’s burning atmosphere awaits them. Huh?
The production teams includes veterans of many of Sy Fy films who really should have known better.
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