The Atlantis Interceptors (1983)

- I predatori di Atlantide
"If you ask me, we're just heading around in circles.", 21 February 2008

One thing you'll notice if you watch only a handful of 1980s Italian genre films is the way they rip-off…err…I mean borrow from whatever the popular fad was at the time in American movies. Movies like Conan the Barbarian, Escape from New York, Dawn of the Dead, and The Road Warrior inspired countless Italian imitators. While few of these movies can be called "good" in a traditional sense, many are at least fun in their own weird and unique way. The Atlantis Interceptors is one such movie. Director Ruggero Deodato throws everything but the kitchen sink into The Atlantis Interceptors. Bits and pieces from movies as diverse as the previously mentioned Escape from New York to Raiders of the Lost Ark are used in the movie's nonsensical storyline. It's a mishmash of ideas with one set-piece after another strung together with the bare minimum of a plot thread. Some of it works and some of it fails miserably, yet it somehow comes out as an entertaining time waster at its worst. It's best to just turn your mind off and go with it.

The plot (at least what I could make out of it) involves a group of scientists raising a derelict Russian nuclear submarine from the ocean floor. By doing so, however, they unwittingly bring Atlantis back to the surface as well. The Atlantians (is that what you call them) send forth an army of post-apocalyptic looking thugs to take over the surface world. A small group of survivors must band together, defeat the Atlantians, and save the world. That may be the plot, but The Atlantis Interceptors is really just one gun battle or car chase or explosion after another.

I guess my biggest surprise came from the number of recognizable faces in the small cast. Ivan Rassimov, George Hilton, Christopher Connelly, and Gioia Scola will most certainly be familiar to fans of Italian genre films. I'm not sure how Deodato was able to assemble a cast like that, but it does add to the movie's appeal.

6/10