UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

lost-in-limbo Remember James Cameron's "The Abyss", well that started a short-lived craze for dangerous Sci-fi/ horror underwater features in the late 80s and branching from that came some monster efforts in the vein of "Deepstar Six" and "Leviathan". Director Juan Piquer Simón (known for the outrageous slasher "Pieces" and enjoyably nasty "Slugs") cash-in "Endless Descent aka The Rift" falls more in the latter crowd. It amusedly knows what it is and keeps to its strengths. Sometimes laughable, but it works.A high tech experimental submarine Siren One has disappeared in a rift and Wick Hayes the creator of the design is asked to return to be part of a team in Siren II in the search of the missing sub. As they dive deeper they come across a black box transmission, but also encounter underwater life forms that might just be more to it than what they were prepared for.After getting off to a slow start setting up the situation, it eventually builds itself up rapidly by rallying up some intense moments, bloody surprises and imaginatively elastic monster designs (largely underwater plant life and roaming tentacles) that really make an impression the further along the film goes. The comprised special effects are neatly realised, adding in some cheaply punishing jolts but still having creativity within them. Obviously a low-budget and quickly produced enterprise, and clunky story takes elements from other films (Galaxy of Terror comes to mind) which took away any sense of narration surprises, but clichés / and predictability aside Simon does a decent job putting them together in a fairly entertaining, if daft mixture. His tightly measured direction works in its favour creating a compact, but arrestingly threatening atmosphere, along with Joel Goldsmith's spine-tingling music score that complements the terrors waiting in the unknown.The acting is far from great and a junky script doesn't help either, but having the likes of dependable stars as R. Lee Emery, Ray Wise, Jack Scalia, Deborah Adair and small parts from Edmund Purdom and Garrick Hagon give it a lot stability. John Toles-Bey plays the token wise-cracking character with the stunning Ely Pouget in a ripe, no-bull turn.It might not match the professional gloss of the other mentioned underwater features, but it's definitely my favourite of its ilk. Generic, but fun.

danhyndman This is a well-acted, low budget science-fiction/horror movie set in the deep ocean. It involves a submarine crew on a rescue mission and a secret government project which has gone terribly wrong. The crew are stereotypical, but likable, so the viewer is genuinely concerned about their fate. The stand-out performers are the great Lee Ermey (as the submarine commander) and Ray Wise (as a seemingly obsequious science officer). B-movie action hero, Jack Scalia, also gives a strong performance as the brilliant, but iconoclastic, lead.The special effects, which include a wide variety of aquatic monsters, are certainly low-budget but never laughable or too fake looking. The obvious use of submarine miniatures are somewhat unconvincing.The film is rated R for a considerable amount of gore and strong language. There is little or no sexual content.This underwater thriller is reminiscent of sci-fi films of the late 1950's/early 1960's, such as It! The Terror from Beyond Space and Angry Red Planet (two other films which I would also recommend).It is also somewhat similar to DeepStar Six, another underwater horror film which was released at about the same time.

Backlash007 Endless Descent (aka The Rift) is the afterbirth of 1989's underwater explosion of The Abyss, Leviathan, and Deepstar Six. Just as you expect from an apparent bandwagon jumper, it's not as good as those prior flicks. It also takes some time to get going. It has the feel of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea for the most part of the film (and the sub effects are just as hokey). It doesn't turn into a true B monster movie until they finally get out of the damned submarine. Then we get some giant killer seaweed, rubber mutants, and a nice head explosion. I might add that the head explosion was the highlight of the movie. Jack Scalia leads a cast of mostly unknowns and no one here shines. Even R. Lee Ermey and my man Ray Wise seem to be phoning it in. The director's other films include the horrible Pieces and the unwatchable Cthulhu Mansion. So viewer beware.

Karri Koivusalo It's difficult to find anything worth of praise with this movie. It's not the worst picture ever made, but that's not saying a whole lot. The plot is quite incoherent and unbelievable; it seems that the producers wanted to make a space movie, but decided to make it underwater to cash in at the success of The Abyss. In some scenes it seems as if the story indeed was set to outer space initially; the sub has a landing gear, the technicians are worried of a rip in a rubber diving suit at the depths of several kilometers, where the pressure would crush the diver and the suit like an empty beer can. The movie starts out okay, with planning of a recovery of a lost naval sub. After that the movie takes a plunge along with the Siren 2.Effects are so-so. The navigational screens are all done on Commodore 64 (remember, this is 1990, not 1983), the sub is controlled like no other sub ever; instead of control consoles, the officers have keyboards with which they enter long number sequences to control various functions of the ship. The interior of the ship isn't too convincing either.The final scenes leap from awkward to absurd. Welcome to the fifties, you can check your suspension of disbelief at the door.I fail to see enjoyment factor here. The movie is neither good nor hilariously bad MST3k-style (until you get to the final scene), it's like eating a slightly bad apple.