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(c) Universal
U-571 is exactly the type of film that we don’t need right now, but would gross obnoxious amounts of dough. Fortunately, it only grossed about $10 million more than their budget, but, watching the movie, I can’t really believe that the budget was actually over $60 million, based on what I saw. Perhaps it was egged on because I had just visited Universal Studios, and I saw how cheaply they created “special effects” for this movie, and also the “magic” of miniatures. All of this was evident, and it could have been created with more realism in my bathtub.
The characters are mainly in jumbles, like most war movies. About the only one we get to meet and know a little about is Matthew McConaughey, as Andrew Tyler. He’s itching for his own submarine, but it’s denied, which is supposed to account for behavior on the submarine, but we don’t see any pent-up anger or anything. And when he gets his run at the ship later in the movie, does he seem glad? Nope. McConaughey has never been touted as a great actor, and it shows here.
Most shots of the submarine, a German U-Boat that is taken over by the Navy, that were out on the sea were just miniatures, as I said earlier. The water just looked like a puddle at a Universal backlot with a child’s toy boat floating in it. The blood, when it was in the water, looked like food coloring, and when a person was shot, it was most definitely orange. I’ve bled, and blood is not orange. Whenever a shot was fired, it looked like, well, the laser rays at the end of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
However, it isn’t all bad. Some scenes in the various submarines, although not claustrophobic like the ones in K-19: The Widowmaker, can be tense at times. I did, however, know who was going to live and who was going to die. Also, since these are troubled times, would the Germans beat the good ol’ U.S. of A? It seemed that the enemies were all stereotyped, like all war movies.
Do you like war movies? Do you like submarine movies? Do you like mediocre submarine movies? If you answered yes to the first two, then look somewhere else. If the third is what you say, then go for U-571.
Rated PG-13 for war violence.
Review Date: May 19, 2003