Touches You

Excellent but underrated film

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Actually I could have given this movie a very high rating, given, it makes you laugh a lot, it's so badly done and everything is so fake, you actually laugh at all this. And that might deserve a higher rating.The very story on it's own is clearly the outcome of a combination of wrongly mixed drugs.Various stories run along the main plot. But first things first, the basics: A submarine time-machine that runs on diamonds, travels to the past to stop a drilling rig of inducing a worldwide cataclysm by perforating the mantle and destabilizing the pressure, making everything go kaboom.The movie starts with a diamond theft in the future where apparently all cars are exactly the same as in the 70's. The diamond burglars manage to get away from the police that followed them in an Ice- cream van or something alike, very shabby indeed. I never knew those vans where more powerful than police cars. Anyway, they just reach the beach and enter the sea and keep on swimming until they reach the submarine. This is when the movie starts for real! Well, so they say...The main character is like a fusion of MacGyver and Michael Knight. He is introduced rescuing a kidnapped guy, killing the first batch on the main floor with guns, and later on, on the first floor with a crossbow and a pen as an arrow, apparently because he doesn't want to be heard (surely the mass shooting downstairs went unnoticed to the ears of the kidnappers).The eco-terrorists have clearly no budget and have to assault the rig in a small Zodiak. Apparently they spent it all on the guns. Magic guns BTW that kill before even shooting, as can be seen when they enter the room full of machines with flashing buttons and pseudo-scientists that have been told to move their hands and touch buttons to appear more professional and scientific. Of the Nautilus crew assaulting the rig, I wont talk, that must be seen by itself.Not to forget the overtly sassy footage of a NASA rocket that now is a missile that intercepts F-18's.

While Nautilus may not have had the budget of some of the larger Hollywood projects, they story, action, and acting of the main stars propels this above most attempts at Sci-Fi cinema released. While much of the attention centers around the martial arts prowess of Richard Norton, attention needs to be placed on the actor that portrayed Raoul, the leader of the Eco-terrorism group Equinox. Now known as the host for popular shows such as Shop till you Drop and Outback Jack, Roberto shines in his role here as a man with a mission to save the planet. Showing acerbic wit and physical dexterity, his screen time was a highlight of this film.Action, Explosions, Intrigue, Time Travel, Martial Arts, what more could a movie buff ask for?

The Cover for the DVD shows a very impressive Submarine. Unfortunately, the sub in the movie is a very different and extremely inferior sub, nothing like the cover picture. Even though this is a sub movie, 98% of the action take place between humans far from the sub. No Monsters, No Fantasy Elements, just mid 90's direct to video really bad action, with less than stellar players. If this movie had just added some good CGI stuff, it would have been much better. This movie has an ecological message to it, and while important, always brings a movie down. And of course, even though the name of the movie is Nautilus and is about a sub, there is zero connection between it, and the writings of Jules Verne. (What we need are some direct to video/DVD Captain Nemo movies that hold no relation to the books, other than the character and his sub, fighting lots of monsters and stuff.) This movie was less than stellar, but I did manage to make it all the through with out turning it off. The actors failed, but the story did make me want to see how it ended.

Made for very little money, NAUTILUS is actually a fun science-fiction film combining elements from 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, CRACK IN THE WORLD and DIE HARD. On the level of a Roger Corman styled flick, the film has impressive productions values and some very nice miniature work. Richard Norton of the Jackie Chan films is a good, athletic hero and as a middle of the week video rental, this flick delivers the goods in an unpretentious way.