BATTLE BENEATH THE EARTH
The wonderful thing about Battle Beneath the Earth is that it allows even an underachiever like myself with no college edukation to feel that he has a breadth of scientific knowledge superior to that of its makers. On more than one occasion while watching it I was able to point at the screen and exclaim, “Der, that can’t not happen! Har!” For instance, I don’t know anything about geology, but I know that molten lava is hot, and that you can’t just daintily step over a stream of it as if it were a crack in the sidewalk. Also, if digging a tunnel between China and the U.S. were as easy as this film makes it out to be, China’s biggest problem would be the steady influx of six-to-eight year-old American boys constantly emerging from holes hither and yon to excitedly wave their shovels at people. Battle Beneath the Earth strikes me as being what a movie conceived by one of those six-to-eight year-old boy might be like.
#1 by KeithA on October 6, 2008 - 1:00 pm
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So who wins in a fight between the evil communist falcon and Sheroo the Wonder Bird?
#2 by Blake Matthews on October 6, 2008 - 1:06 pm
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When I watched this movie a number of years ago, it was Paula Li Shiu’s scene that was the most memorable. There was something about a pretty Chinese girl hypnotizing a guy with a fan that just etched the scene into my brain.
#3 by MatthewF on October 7, 2008 - 6:34 am
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I keep misreading it as ‘battl;e beneath the planet of the apes’….I look forward to the sequel ‘Escape from the conquest of the battle beneath the earth’
#4 by Carl on October 7, 2008 - 6:57 am
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Keith? People can and do walk ON lava if they’re wearing good boots. Lava is indeed hot, but the outer surface develops a rocky crust, and rock is a fine insulator.
#5 by Todd on October 7, 2008 - 8:10 am
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Carl, Keith is not to blame on this one. What can I say? I said I didn’t know anything about geology, and if my assertions about lava were false, that just proves my point. So, in a way, the statement is entirely accurate. See how I did that there?
I’d also like to point out that, apropos of this being a review that starts out with me confessing my lack of education, it has what I’m pretty sure is the largest number of typos and misspellings of any that I’ve written for Teleport City so far.
Keith, I was disappointed that General Chan Lu’s falcon turned out to be really just a trophy falcon, and wasn’t employed to deliver messages or claw anyone’s eyes out. So, clearly, no match for Sheroo. In this Bollywood movie I recently watched, Spy in Rome, the villain punished one of his minions by strapping a live falcon to her face. Now that’s how a villain should make use of a falcon. I mean, didn’t Chekhov say something about how, if you introduce a falcon in the first act, you need to have it attack someone’s face in the second? I think I heard that somewhere.
#6 by KeithA on October 7, 2008 - 1:32 pm
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I’m still sticking with no matter how nice your boots are, you probably don’t want to splash around in puddles of hot magma.
And strapping a falcon’s to someone’s face is genius.
#7 by PCachu on October 13, 2008 - 3:02 pm
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Wow. The Apocalypse is upon us, and its herald is Greg the Former Yellow Wiggle.
(Why yes, my daughter is approaching three years old, why do you ask?)
#8 by KeithA on October 13, 2008 - 7:08 pm
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Wait a second…the YELLOW Wiggle? Clever, China, clever…
#9 by The Rev. D.D. on October 15, 2008 - 7:33 am
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That screenshot…it’s like the guy who played Malko in Agent for H.A.R.M. and the result of Leonard Nimoy and Lou Diamond Phillips being tossed into the Brundlefly machine decided to get together and discuss the finer points of open vs. closed collars while waiting for the subway.
I’ll bet the reality of that scene isn’t near that exciting though…