Phew, it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great – typical horror movie that can’t sustain itself through the third act – but it wasn’t bad. There were some nifty shots Darren Arronofsky probably suggested and I liked the sort of miniatures look of some of the naval sequences.
It was pretty cool seeing a movie set in a submarine in 1943 even if there were some silly things in it. I think the boat had a black medic, which would have been verboten. There was one point where a German destroyer deploys grappling hooks (!) to dredge the ocean floor for a hiding submarine. I’m no authority, but I haven’t even heard that one as an urban legend (e.g. Russians strapping land mines on the backs of dogs). They also took serious liberties with period diving, but a non-diver probably wouldn’t even notice that stuff.
I generally have a rule that I will see ANYTHING Olivia Williams is in. Even if it’s just her reading the phone book in the “Rainman”-style.
I’ve been dying to see this movie, but it’s been nearly impossible to find. My nearest Hollywood Video (yes, I suck that bad) was supposed to get it last month according to their own calendar and magazine, but it never came in, and the clerks were all clueless about it.
Is it now available? I’m too busy with school to have checked lately.
The DVD has a commentary with David Twohy (director) and several members of the cast that was interesting. IIRC, Twohy said that Japanese ships had those grappling hooks for dredging subs off the ocean floor, but the Germans didn’t. He felt it wasn’t a huge sin to give the hooks to a German ship because it was correct for the time period at least. (unless he was kidding and I just didn’t get the joke, did anyone else listen to the DVD commentary?)
Regarding the diving gear, I think he said it was another case of right time period, wrong navy, because that gear was invented by the British and used by their navy.
I liked it, but I agree that it has same problem as most horror movies in sustaining the fear through the end. It’s hard to scare people once the threat has been identified.
I also liked K-19, but I was watching it more as a docudrama than as pure entertainment. It was like a big budget version of the discovery channel documentary on the same incident.
