Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea Reviews

Yes, there's a cool cast, but the story is stupid and it's a boring submarine movie too. As much as I enjoyed seeing Lorre, Fontaine, Eden, Pidgeon, Sterling, and Avalon in a movie together, the movie itself wasn't worthy of having them in it. I don't recommend this movie.

A colourpuking and bizarre mash up of Vernesian ideas and Hollywood mainstream, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea never really takes of as a movie and introduces many ideas while not developing the old ones. The character's motivations are utterly one-dimensional and taken out of the help-yourself stereotype box (foreign villain or German scientist anyone ?). The cast is made up of B-movie stars and type casts such as grumpy woodman Walter Pidgeon, whose performance is so stiff, I almost ripped my silverscreen apart. I did not enjyo the movie, as much as the technicolour fest and fight with the Kraken (Camp !) made me cbuckle. To ambitious and bloated for a b-movie, and far from being an A-movie.

H.

Have you ever seen something so horribly bad that you couldn't tear yourself away from it? Well...this would be one of those things.

This was an expensive pilot for a TV show. The special effects were all models shot in a tank of water. All the underwater life looks like rubber toys. The story is far fetched and has every cliche from every other Sci-Fi or submarine movie. The acting is over done and melodramatic. Some of the plot elements were done better in the Star Trek TV series. In the story the Van Allen Radiation belts have caught fire and are causing rapid global warming. Of coarse this is not possible. The Van Allen Radiation belts are just solar radiation trapped by the earth's magnetic field in the vacuum of space. When this movie was made the Van Allen Radiation belts had just been discovered by the U.S.'s first satellites and the USS Nautilus had also recently traveled under the Artic ice cap to the North Pole. The only reason to watch this movie is to see a young Barbara Eden in a pre I Dream of Jeannie role. The bad guy in the movie is played by Barbara Eden's real life husband at the time Michael Ansara who also played several characters on I Dream of Jeannie. He was most famous for playing Kang the Klingon in Star Trek. The TV show that came from this pilot was totally recast and was better written for the first few years. By the time the TV show ended it had become a monster of the week Sci-Fi series. However, without this movie and then TV show there may have been no Star Trek. The success of the TV show led NBC to look for a similar series that became Star Trek. The star of the movie was Walter Pidgeon who was also in Forbidden Planet which was also copied by Star Trek.

Typical over produced Irwin Allen spectacle, way overblown and melodramatic, a rather corny and unconvincing plot, but I sure was entertained anyway. The cast is great. Joan Fontaine sure took on a role like she has never done before. It is clear plenty of money went into the production. Technically it is quite good. Imaginative with good cinematography. A few years later it became a popular television series.

This is a fun movie to watch. It's very reminiscent of a "Twilight Zone" episode where the earth is being baked. Great science fiction writing in this. It's good to see the only two actresses in scenes together. Barbara Eden and Joan Fontaine are excellent and worked well with each other, too. I realize the producers were trying to create a super submarine for effect, but it was the roomiest submarine ever with high ceilings, broad staircases and wide rooms. Another hilarious aspect was the below-the-knee high railing to keep people from falling into the shark tank. Safety? Naw, it's over-rated.
My favorite scene is Barbara Eden's entrance: having her wiggling butt engulf the entire screen! Classic!

Parece otra propuesta divertida de Allen como sus filmes de desastres, pero peca de algo, y ese algo es importane: Viaje al Fondo Del Mar es aburrida, aburrida, aburrida. La trama es floja y ni sus apabulantes efectos ni su supercast la logran salvar.

Not the most memorable film I have seen, however the constant saturation of sophisticated special effects (for the time) and the fads of the time that were haphazardly included in the screenplay seems to draw one in for the sheer kitsch value.

However, despite the esteemed cast, not one of the actors on this film could have rescued the abysmal script. The lines are stilted and unnatural for the dire situation the characters are in, and almost every character seems disinterested and bored. The impromptu trumpet dance scene with Barbara Eden and Frankie Avalon has no relevance or meaning whatsoever to the story.

Things became a tad off kilter in the underwater scene with the obviously fake sea creatures such as a propellor-propelled swordfish and a foam squid. Afterwards, people become ill and lenghty monologues about life and the end of the world ensue.

A somewhat forgettable sequence in an underwater minefield comes next, in which the most memorable thing aside from the blank, bored characters was when I spilt my can of soft drink.

However, like 'Mommie Dearest' or 'Giant Spider Invasion', I couldn't stop watching due to the unintentional humor and dreary plot twists. From that aspect it was watchable, even entertaining. Even the obvious scientific error of 'skyfire' in space posing a threat to earth became laughable after a while.

Despite the stilted acting, the dreary script, the factual errors, the laughable special effects and the irritating sound effects, the mediocrity of the movie makes it worth watching, however not repeatedly. No one should have to do that.

I've a grand appreciation for both retro disaster propaganda and campy underwater adventures but I had a very hard time sitting though this. Some greatness amongst a sea of boring-ness.

Even after all these years, and I saw this movie when it was new, this film stands up to the modern standards, without CGI, or any of the" modern" film technologies.

Great special effects and a lot a nostalgic moments make "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" a fun submarine flick.

VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA (1961)

68/100. Typical over produced Irwin Allen spectacle, way overblown and melodramatic, a rather corny and unconvincing plot, but I sure was entertained anyway. The cast is great. Joan Fontaine sure took on a role like she has never done before. It is clear plenty of money went into the production. Technically it is quite good. Imaginative with good cinematography. A few years later it became a popular television series.

I just don't think the film or the effects have stood up very well.

A tough film to watch now.

The acting and plot are passable but nothing special