Latitude Zero (1970)
A massive underwater volcano erupts and puts a group of investigative scientists in danger. They are rescued by an atomic super submarine named The Alpha under the command of Captain McKenzie. The group is quickly taken to a vast underwater city known as Latitude Zero, a fantastic, Atlantean type utopia, a world beneath the ocean with its own sun. It is soon discovered that Captain McKenzie is at war with the evil Dr. Malic, a cruel scientist who wishes to rule mankind all the while conducting genetic experiments on humans and animals. Malic sends his agents to kidnap Dr. Okada, a human scientist who has created a serum that can immunize exposure to radiation.
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A Brilliant Conflict
Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.
This is one of the finest of the non-Godzilla epics by Ishiro Honda and Toho. It definitely has all the elements that make for a great film great story, great action and an interesting twist at the end. What really stands out is the fact that Honda pretty much took a near impossible situation in working with several American actors who didn't speak Japanese and was able to do a decent job in directing them. However, the thing that really was interesting about this film was the fact that this film marks what probably is the first and only time that Akira Takarada and the late, great Akihiko Hirata are heard speaking English with their own voices after years of being dubbed. This film is definitely one of the finest to come from Toho.
Irwin Allen's 1978 Captain Nemo featured old time Hollywood stars - Jose Ferrer and Batman's Burgess Meredith - doing battle with each other in studio-tank-bound submarines with memorable music scoring the show. Latitude Zero (1969) has old time Hollywood stars - Cotten and Batman's Romero - doing battle with each other in studio-tank-bound submarines with memorable music scoring the show!However, the middle sections of Latitude Zero are set in an underwater city with no subs to be seen, but still, those early scenes of Zero are very Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea/Nemo-ish, in fact I almost felt like I discovered some long lost Irwin Allen production when recently viewing Latitude Zero for my first time! The colourful lines given to Cotten and Romero are what stand out in my memory more than anything else.The film is cool.
Another memory from my childhood! I was about 7 or 8 years old when I saw this film and it really freaked me at this time! Recently, I watched "Ido zero daisakusen" again and it had great nostalgia-values!! Giant rats, bat-like creatures... this flick directed by Godzilla´s spiritual father Ishiro Honda has everything a great Japanese monster movie needs! Plus the great performances of Richard Jaeckel, who made some extraordinary alien-experiences in "The Green Slime" as well as Cesare Romero, unforgettable as sneering bad guy Joker in the 1960s Batman-series! The biggest surprise however was the appearance of Joseph Cotten, an actor that also starred in the Orson Welles-classic "Citizen Kane" or Carol Reed´s "The 3rd Man"... so he´s next to Russ Tamblyn or Raymond Burr a further US-actor who can add a Japanese Sci-fi movie to his filmography. "Atragon II" may be a little bit cheesy compared to nowaday´s standard (Which Asian monster flick from those days is not?!?), but all the multimillion Dollar CGI-F/X can´t deal with the great naive charm this film delivers! A cult classic!!!
I saw this film while it was in first run, back in 1969. Expecting an action film, what I recall seeing was one of the worst most laughable bombs in cinematic history. The special effects were amateurish and the acting dreadfully stiff. A Japanese movie with two has-been American actors edited in.When I first discovered Mystery Science Theater 3000 back in the early '90s this film immediately came to mind as perfect fodder for a send-up. I don't know if they ever got around to spoofing it, but Joel and the crew should have.Don't waste your time on this turkey.