Editor’s Note: This review previously ran on August 20, 2018.
This is the first VHS tape I ever rented. It was 1983. Prime Time Video had just opened. And the tape box promised delights we’d never dreamt of before. I was thinking this was going to be the best parts of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Mad Max. And wow, was I disappointed. But how would I feel 35 years later?
After trying to raise a Russian sub, the descendants of Atlantis attack our heroes, but they look a whole lot like punk bikers from an Italian post-apocalyptic movie. Which they totally are. Our heroes have to uncover the secret of Atlantis and stop them before they take over the world.
Christopher Connelly is Mike, our main hero. You may recognize him from Benji or TV’s Peyton Place. Or more likely, you know him from Manhattan Baby or 1990: The Bronx Warriors.
Plus, there’s Gioia Scola (Conquest), Tony King (The Toy), Stefano Mingardo (Blastfighter), George Hilton (The Case of the Bloody Iris), Ivan Rassimov (need I regale you with my love of his films?) and a young Michele Soavi before he became a director!
I’ll be super honest. This movie is a complete piece of shit. There are moments of greatness, such as whenever Crystal Skull appears or when a corpse keeps turning a jukebox off and on. I wanted to love this movie as a child and I wanted to love it even more as an adult. But sadly, that love never filled my heart.
There are people that love this film. And I get it. I like Ruggero Deodato. I just can’t get into this movie.
You can watch it for free with an Amazon Prime membership, so maybe you might have a totally different point of view!
B&S About Movies 
Yeah man, Raiders RULEZ – of course I saw it in just the right mood at just the right moment. Love that Tony King – Chris Connelly banter, and just the kind of cool Hawksian camarederie between them and Rassimov as the chopper pilot. George Hilton as a professor! A pumpin’ 80s synth anthem score? Tony King’s constant shouting encouragement and support as their dwindling crew do things like jump onto helicopters from the top of busses, throw a thousand molotov cocktails, turn the landscape ablaze, and so forth. You get a Lost Ark ending, tons of action, looney tunes mythology, Russian sub raising, beached nuclear subs… maybe your expectations were too high during your original rental? Maybe cropped for an older TV screen? It just came out on Blu-ray from… Severin? Either way, eight time’s the charm?
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I was like ten and expecting Raiders! I’ve come around and I have the Severin blu!
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