This definitive director's cut has better sound and picture but spares no length. That's the haunting prologue to Wolfgang Petersen's 1981 submarine classic "Das Boot," which got an excellent redux in 1997. Of the 40,000 men who went to sea in German U-boats in World War II, 30,000 never returned. If submarine movies are a microcosm of a global society, this film argues that without cooperation between East and West, no one will be left alive. In any event, by the time British and Norwegian rescuers were permitted to help (spoiler alert!) it was too late for all 118 souls aboard. The only quibble is it blames a random admiral when many have pointed the finger at Vladimir Putin directly. The Russian military is portrayed as a force in decline whose leadership would rather sacrifice its own soldiers than admit weakness. "The Command" is a western European production with a stellar cast including Colin Firth. Ironically, the film's only real flaw is it distractingly plays with aspect ratio as letterboxes move in and out at key moments. And unlike so many older titles only available in a hideous 16x9 crop, "The Command" comes as director Thomas Vinterberg intended, in full widescreen glory. So forget the haters this sci-fi adventure is a thrill if you go in understanding it's a B-movie in big-budget scuba gear.ĭespite a middling budget, "The Command" has some of the most flawless and subtle cinematography of any submarine thriller. Even surrounded by super-geniuses, it's up to Norman's intuitive instincts as a shrink to solve the riddle of a mysterious alien consciousness. Liev Schreiber and Sharon Stone round out this perfectly cast crew, each catching cabin fever in the face of their strange discovery. This was Crichton at the peak of his sci-fi powers, and nobody was better at blending popular science into technically plausible thriller plots. Jackson is fantastic as the team's resident mathematician who is suspiciously resigned to spending the anxious hours lying about reading another story about underwater peril, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."Ĭritics absolutely hated this movie, particularly the ending, but the conceit is just too intriguing to dismiss. Dustin Hoffman plays Norman, a psychologist called upon for a secret mission to a deep-sea habitat where it turns out a strange and possibly extraterrestrial orb has been found buried inside a sunken spaceship.
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