UNDER THE MOUNTAIN is the big screen adaptation of a young adult novel of the same name that I've never heard of. It's a Kiwi young adult film, sort of Harry Potter style, in which a couple of magical teenagers must team up to battle the forces of evil and, somewhat inevitably, save the world.
The first thing that becomes apparent when watching this is that it's virtually Lovecraft for children. You have an evil, sinister family called the Wilberforces, alien races, and long-dormant monsters living deep below the ground, in this case underneath volcanoes. The problem is that UNDER THE MOUNTAIN doesn't do very much with the premise. I love Lovecraft, but it all boils down here to a couple of tentacled guys chasing the kids around, plus some CGI magical power stuff.
The cast is largely interesting, aside from 'hook' name Sam Neill, who gives a nicely judged performance as the loner/weirdo who hooks up with the leads and teaches them a few of the universe's mysteries. It's just a pity, then, that the execution is so cheap-looking, and aside from a couple of good chase scenes this doesn't really offer up anything we haven't seen before.
The first thing that becomes apparent when watching this is that it's virtually Lovecraft for children. You have an evil, sinister family called the Wilberforces, alien races, and long-dormant monsters living deep below the ground, in this case underneath volcanoes. The problem is that UNDER THE MOUNTAIN doesn't do very much with the premise. I love Lovecraft, but it all boils down here to a couple of tentacled guys chasing the kids around, plus some CGI magical power stuff.
The cast is largely interesting, aside from 'hook' name Sam Neill, who gives a nicely judged performance as the loner/weirdo who hooks up with the leads and teaches them a few of the universe's mysteries. It's just a pity, then, that the execution is so cheap-looking, and aside from a couple of good chase scenes this doesn't really offer up anything we haven't seen before.