Steven Seagals Submerged Movie Review

But then, darkness covered the land. The gloom of direct-to-video hovered over him. And he caved. Seagal bent over and took it. And he left us dreck. Dreck that my roommate insists on renting as soon as it's released to video. (I'm beginning to stop giving him the benefit of the doubt on these, and if the next Van Damme one is as bad as this, my roommate is gonna be meeting the business end of a sock full of pennies).

"Submerged" is Seagal's latest crime against humanity. It's directed by Anthony Hickox, who brought us "Warlock: The Armageddon" and "Full Eclipse," a pretty kick ass little movie about an elite group of werewolf cops. but Submerged is no "Full Eclipse." Hell, it's no "Warlock: The Armageddon," and given that the audience I saw that with joined together in the theater to demand their money back, that's saying a lot.

The plot involves brainwashing soldiers. I think. It begins with a group of bad guys outside a dam. A really fake spy plane flies overhead, taking pictures, and sending them to the US Ambassador in Montevideo. Just as soon as you're saying "Hey, this Ambassador is WAY TOO HOT for this job," a group of brainwashed agents kill her, then themselves. (They were brainwashed, you see?) A group of elite soldiers are sent into a field, and you know they're movie soldiers because they have no formation at all, and they stop IN THE MIDDLE OF AN OPEN FIELD WHEN THERE'S PLENTY OF COVER AROUND! These guys are ambushed, and surrender to be brainwashed.  This takes us to the USS Clinton, an air force carrier named after the most phallic American president.

For some unknown reason, Seagal is brought here from prison. But damn, if he doesn't have a BADASS entrance, with wailing guitar music. Oh, and he also has an inexplicable Cajun accent, but that doesn't really matter. (I'll explain why in a minute). Seagal has a team of badasses who are introduced with freeze frames of their name, experience, and special skill to the team that reminded me of the back of a G.I. Joe package. (ie. Doc's special skill is medicine, as opposed to cooking). I half expected there to be a character who's special skill was "token black guy" but there wasn't even a token black guy on the team. Anyway, I guess he and his team of badasses are selected to blow up said dam and stop the brainwashers. They do this, but are ambushed by an army of bad guys. Seagal takes on a tank, with a grenade, and wins. Then the dam blows up, and Seagal and the badasses, with the troops from the first strike team in tow, board a submarine, which should be noted is not the greatest means for making a quick escape out of hostile territory.

But the soldiers are brainwashed, and proceed to take over the now SUBMERGED (title) sub. You could say that Seagal's men are under siege. But this quickly ends, as the sub is destroyed and Seagal and his remaining crew escape. Then they go after the bad guy
brainwashers because there's still a good 40 minutes left to make it to feature length.

"Dude," you may be asking yourself, "It's a direct to video Seagal flick, of course it's gonna be bad." I've come to accept this. But I didn't expect it to be this bad. Granted, if I was drinking, or under a heavier mind altering substance, I would have had a blast. (It got me through "Ticker"). But even making fun of it with my roommate got tiresome after awhile, because we didn't even need to try hard.

This brings me to Seagal's cajun accent. It's distracting at first, because you're wondering why he's doing it. But then something disturbing occurs. He gets dubbed. By the guy who does his dubbing for television editing. Granted, he gets the lip synching down, but it's still not Seagal's whispery voice.Sometimes it is, but most times, it is not. Apparently this is normal for his films of late. I don't know if it's because he mumbles too much on set and they can't get him to do ADR, or if he outright refuses to ADR. (Or maybe he feels he can make more money by coming in and redubbing his purposely mumbled lines, so he can milk this teat for all it's worth, but the producers have wised up and went with the cheaper guy). Anyway, it's just plain bad. And the cajun choice is just plain dumb, especially when he affectionately refers to his badass strike team members as "alligator." (I shyte you not. Maybe it's because they have a lot of alligators in the bayou). He also tends to not look other actors in the eye when he's acting with them.

Seagal also doesn't do a lot of fighting. He has the battle against the tank, but he kind of just stumbles in and takes care of that business. He has a lot of gunfights (without ever reloading his pump action shotgun) and one pretty neat fight against a random guy, that's way too short, probably because Seagal had a date with a sandwich. When our heroes fall, I take the cheap shots.

Now, it would be one thing if it was just Seagal and his horrible performance. But no. First, there's the story which I tried explaining, and I sounded like a 6 year old making things up as I go. Then there's the unnecessary editing: Tons of "shock" cuts, speed ramps, obscure imagery, all of which makes no sense. At one point, I could swear there was a shot of a toe growing, which I didn't think was at all possible.
This is quickly followed by a brainwashed woman singing opera. I almost threw things at my television, this was so annoying.

Is there any saving grace to this movie? Gratuitous nudity? A wise cracking robot? Anything?

One thing: Vinnie Jones. Known throughout the world as a football (soccer) player with a bad temper, and to movie audiences as the guy with the bad temper in the Guy Ritchie movies. (I actually met him when I lived in London, and he is just as intimidating as I expected). The movie comes to life with him. He kicks an obscene amount of ass in this movie, and could have kicked even more if they had the balls to make the flick about him. Alas, they didn't, so all you get is a great Vinnie Jones badass in the middle of a bad movie.

So rent only if you must. Or if you're gonna lose a bet if you don't. As for me, I'm loading up the sock full of pennies and awaiting the next one.  And silently weeping.

The Dude