Nazis at the Centre of the Earth is an obvious, quick, cash in on the far superior Iron Sky. One deals with the subject as a tongue-in-cheek romp, paying sensitive attention to its subject matter, and the other is this film. In fact it is a surprise, given the script, that any of the actors thought taking part was a good idea. Yes, they may be jobbing for work, but really are they this desperate?
Of this motley crew worthy of mention is Lilan Bowden who is capable of adopting more than five emotions, Jake Busey, who at least knows his own limitations by this point and manages to just get more screen time than his teeth, and, James Maxwell, who pulls about as much out of a robot Hitler, with limited lines, as you could expect.
Where this film is seriously lacking is the awful writing and insensitive way it treats its subject matter. Involving Mengele adds some avoidable anti-Semitism as the Jewish character is vaporised. The females throughout the film have some of the worst roles, being represented poorly at every level. The woman of German heritage and Norwegian woman seem to side with the Nazi's. Another has her breasts ripped out of her costume and is then raped and the final one is lobotomised. All this happening after we are told that they are valuable scientists who have been sourced deliberately for their scientific knowledge.
We are also expected to believe that these are the stupidest and worst surrender-monkey scientists that ever existed. All busying themselves to help the Nazi cause with hardly a word of protest. You also wonder where all their Antarctic gear went when they arrive at the centre of the Earth and how much time and resource the Nazi's had to build a seemingly endless base there.
When a film maintains a cracking pace you often don't look for the cracks but this film crawls, like a crippled millipede, across the screen making you want to find reasons to criticise it. The possibility of creating a Doug Mc.Clure style adventure sadly missed and forgotten. In fact remove the Nazi's and replace them with almost anything else and certain aspects of the film would be saved.
Cheap special effects, uninspired music and faulty directing top off the issues with this film making it almost impossible to recommend to anyone.
Of this motley crew worthy of mention is Lilan Bowden who is capable of adopting more than five emotions, Jake Busey, who at least knows his own limitations by this point and manages to just get more screen time than his teeth, and, James Maxwell, who pulls about as much out of a robot Hitler, with limited lines, as you could expect.
Where this film is seriously lacking is the awful writing and insensitive way it treats its subject matter. Involving Mengele adds some avoidable anti-Semitism as the Jewish character is vaporised. The females throughout the film have some of the worst roles, being represented poorly at every level. The woman of German heritage and Norwegian woman seem to side with the Nazi's. Another has her breasts ripped out of her costume and is then raped and the final one is lobotomised. All this happening after we are told that they are valuable scientists who have been sourced deliberately for their scientific knowledge.
We are also expected to believe that these are the stupidest and worst surrender-monkey scientists that ever existed. All busying themselves to help the Nazi cause with hardly a word of protest. You also wonder where all their Antarctic gear went when they arrive at the centre of the Earth and how much time and resource the Nazi's had to build a seemingly endless base there.
When a film maintains a cracking pace you often don't look for the cracks but this film crawls, like a crippled millipede, across the screen making you want to find reasons to criticise it. The possibility of creating a Doug Mc.Clure style adventure sadly missed and forgotten. In fact remove the Nazi's and replace them with almost anything else and certain aspects of the film would be saved.
Cheap special effects, uninspired music and faulty directing top off the issues with this film making it almost impossible to recommend to anyone.