Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The_Phantom_Projectionist Michael Dudikoff's popularity as an action hero is a mystery that I'll probably never understand, but his output on the direct-to-video market was pretty consistent, even as the home video slump of the late 90s began. 1998's COUNTER MEASURES may be a pretty good vehicle as far as fans are concerned but can be regarded as an average low-budget adventure for the rest of us. Full of Cold War throwbacks and an agreeable amount of decent action, this is the fare of slow Saturday nights or Dudikoff completionists.The story: A Navy SEAL-turned-medic (Dudikoff) finds himself trapped on a nuclear submarine commandeered by the crew of a merciless idealist (James Horan) planning to recreate the Soviet Union by starting a world war.The film is directed by cheapo connoisseur Fred Olen Ray, whose economic style is evident in the ample use of recycled footage and the unconvincing submarine set. Beyond this, the movie is competently made but registers a notable cheese factor for its laughably patriotic, anti-red overtones: an anthemic orchestra kicks in every time we catch sight of a US naval ship, while many scenes featuring Russian characters open with a foreboding bellicose score. Villain James Horan is about as evil as the script demands of him but is all the more memorable for it – at least more so than Dudikoff. Dudikoff's sidekick is played by short-lived action star Alexander Keith/Wendy Schumacher, whose conventional role was probably edited to allow for some butt-kicking when the producers found out that s/he puts on a better fight scene than Michael.Speaking of fight scenes, they are the heart of this one's action content, which is otherwise limited to some shootouts and a ho-hum submarine battle. The eight fights are middle-of-the-road type stuff, even when considering the most exciting ones like Keith's two-on-one brawl and the unexpectedly sound encounter of Lada Boder. Dudikoff is serviceable and makes grisly use of a corkscrew in more than one brawl, but his fights are not only predictable, they sometimes go beyond general suspension of disbelief. For example, I'd buy that Dudikoff's character can defeat the one played by MMA heavyweight Oleg Taktarov, but I have a hard time believing in the ridiculously slow strikes of a fire extinguisher that he uses to do the job.Nevertheless, the fact that the movie keeps a good pace and is never boring is enough to buy it a passing score from me. If you're a general action fan and not too disappointed by the fact that the fighter jets featured on the DVD cover don't seem to appear in the movie, you may have the same impression.

DigitalRevenantX7 Jake Fuller, a decorated former Navy SEAL who lost his brother on a mission seven years before & has since refused to use a weapon, instead becoming a medical officer, is sent on a goodwill mission onboard a Russian nuclear submarine, the Odessa. But the Odessa has been hijacked by terrorists planning to create a new Soviet Union by launching the Hailstorm – an experimental nuclear cluster bomb that is highly unstable – onto Russian cities so that the Russian military will reclaim the former Soviet states in retaliation. Fuller is drugged & locked into a room while the terrorists make their way to Syria. But Fuller quickly recovers, aided by his nurse Swain, who has a secret mission of her own, planning to counterattack & kill the terrorists.It is interesting what happens in the real world while reviewing a film. The premise of Counter Measures – terrorists plan to force the Russian military into taking over former satellite states in retaliation for a perceived threat – has become somewhat accurate to an alarming degree. But thankfully no nuclear bombs have been used. The film was released in 1998 – a good decade & a half before what happened in Eastern Ukraine, where rebels determined to prevent the Ukraine joining the EU embarked on a terrorist campaign in order to 'liberate' their towns by illegal means. This little war, bolstered by the Russian annexation of Crimea (an expected move since the region has Russian warships stationed there), became infamous when the rebels, using a Russian-made & supplied surface to air missile, shot down a civilian jetliner over their skies, killing all on board. Russian complicity in this mess is obvious.Anyway, back to the film, Counter Measures (known in some places as Crash Dive 2) is a card-carrying member of the Royal Oaks studio & is directed by the veteran director Fred Olen Ray (who uses a pseudonym here for some reason). As far as action films go, the film is a bit of a disappointment due to the rather poor writing skills of Steve Latshaw, one of Jim Wynorski's hatchetmen writers & somebody who clearly doesn't do any fact-checking when it comes to writing his scripts. Everywhere you look, there are mistakes – the Navy SEALs don't use Kalashnikov assault rifles as part of their kit; the Russian Navy won't deploy a submarine with a weapon that hasn't been properly tested on board in case of disaster; & the US Navy's officers won't go out of their way to confront somebody who has been a decorated SEAL, even if he is indeed a 'conscientious objector'. And one thing I thought was kind of silly was the idea of Russian terrorists using a Nazi-made nerve agent to kill their victims – wouldn't it be better to use Russian-made nerve gas instead in order to disguise the hijacking? With Latshaw's writing skills factored in, Counter Measures is not terribly innovative in any way & the action scenes sometimes go to absurd lengths – key part being the scene where Dudikoff takes on a pistol-armed terrorist (played by Jason Voorhees himself – Kane Hodder), only to shoot himself in the leg, as well as Alexander Keith's semi-pathetic attempts to fight her assailants despite being shot twice & badly beaten. The story's twists are so predictable that you'll see them coming a kilometre away in advance & the final climax is a little on the implausible side.If I had to make a recommendation, it would be to try to find the cheapest copy of Counter Measures around, watch it then turn the DVD into a novelty coaster if you're not satisfied with it. I sure did – and at $2 a disc, it didn't break the bank.

avalon-2 I found it on DVD, cheap, so I wasn't expecting much. I wasn't dissappointed, either. Character development is choppy, editing is bad, Russian-spy plot is undeveloped and confusing. Why the final suicide? We never know! Stiff acting by some bit parts, but some actors did well in their small roles, particularly the late-repenting missle-man/terrorist. What's up with the blond Ensn/Lt. ? She takes orders, she takes vodka, she takes a man's name in the credits? I'd like to discuss this aspect with someone in the industry. Stimulating opening love scene, for both genders, but downhill from there. Haven't seen Crash Dive 1; was the first battle scene brought forward from that movie? Served only to fog the c.o. aspect of the star.

Angus I don't know if there's an aphorism to put to this type of movie, but there should be, because this flick reminds me a lot of Steel Sharks. And the similarities are unexpected. Both movies are set on subs, both movies involve terrorists (of a sort), both movies are very cheaply done, and critically unrealistic. What've those links got to do with each other? You've got underwater listening devices that can identify screws among wreckage, an American submarine commander who has way less battle-sense than his Russian counterpart, and bad guys with ridiculously unrealistic, paranoid objectives. Anyone in any military service anywhere in the world could probably expand vastly on that list. They'd probably start with: instruments that do not register with military accuracy, but icons and labels that are marketed to American civilians.