20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1997) * "You're going to need more than your nemoguns, captain." Um, yeees, and they're going to all need more, also, too. I've never (before) seen a film of a Jules Verne story where the visionary ideas of Monsieur Verne aren't the star. Not just that he prophesied so much that came to pass, but that even his misses were so spectacular as to be awe-inspiring. Here they just name-check a few relating to feminism and zoology (as if those are different things! aw haw haw!-well, it's funnier than anything in the film), and then move right along into a love triangle. No, not a scientist, a submarine, and a giant squid; that would have been far more entertaining. No, they figure that what this film really needs is a chick. So they smuggle one into the plot, by pretending that she's a boy. So, ok, like a chick who passes for a boy is going to inspire the pro-chick demographic. It gets worse. Out of all the fascinating women in Hollywood, not only do they pick out one who passes for a boy, but also one that can't act or cry, and passes for a boy without being interesting in the slightest. Then they throw in Ben Cross as a Captain Nemo, who's supposed to be haunted and brooding but is instead singularly dorky. He's, of course, attracted to Sophie Aronnax, the...yeah, that's right, which only serves to prove that he's at least eccentric. Exemplar of a script that buries everything of substance, and covers it up with the sort of things that perplex and fascinate purveyors of soap operas and reality television commercials.
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