PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: (1) *poor,* (2) *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*
Most of the mockbusters from The Asylum Studio are studies in soulless imitation, but INDEPENDENT'S DAY goes the extra two-and-a-half feet, compounding its idiocies with a meaningless pun-title, just in order to coast off the INDEPENDENCE DAY sequel of the same year.
Both the original blockbuster and its underwhelming sequel were at least competent dumb space opera, but the script for INDEPENDENT'S can't even keep up the semblance of superficial logic. This time when the aliens come calling, they almost immediately blow up the White House. Sounds like an automatic call to arms, right? Nope, AFTER doing so, the aliens claim that they have a beneficent plan to evacuate Earthlings to save them from a catastrophe.
This state of affairs leads to lots of actors (largely unknowns) standing around desks and arguing about the best course of action, particularly in the scenes with the nominal "hero" of the story, American President Raney (Fay Gauthier). Occasional airborne skirmishes between alien craft and Earth planes keep the tedium from being complete, but it's impossible to tell if any of the performers can act, since the dialogue is so dire and ordinary. Oh, and there are a few moments of CGI animation at the conclusion, when Asylum finally tosses a few bucks for the forgettable revelation of the aliens' physical appearance. And how do the lowly humans defeat the superior alien tech? Oh, I don't know.. could it be... A CYBER-HACK...???
But though Asylum deserves almost every brickbat tossed at it, they managed to hit a (possibly accidental?) homer with NAZIS AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH. Lacking any background info about the film's production, I'll venture that, rather than trying to riff on existing major productions, the movie was pitched as a DTV with a spoofy sounding title like a few hundred others on streaming TV.
Despite a limited budget and a shoot-time of four months, writer Paul Bales and director Joseph J. Lawson delivered a high-octane adventure into lunacy. Lawson's IMDB page mentions several influences, but the one that rules over NAZIS is probably that of Sam Raimi, given the story's insistence on souping up even the most minor incidents with a hyper-active camera. Though in other reviews I've opined that visual effects pros often don't make good directors, Lawson delivers the goods here.
A team of researchers in Antarctica, led by the suspiciously named Doctor Riestag (Jake Busey), investigate a mysterious declivity in the ice, they'd abducted by heavily masked soldiers and taken beneath the ice. There they learn that a small band of Nazis has formed a super-scientific civilization for the purpose of conquering the world. Most if not all of the Nazis are actual survivors of World War II, their lives artificially prolonged by their science, albeit with the undesirable effect of giving them all zombie-flesh. Their temporal leader is the historical Nazi scientist Joseph Mengele, though their hidden leader is Hitler himself, who in FUTURAMA fashion has had his head transplanted onto a robot body.
Lawson and Bales strike just the right note of sustained lunacy, as the imprisoned scientists attempt to undermine the invasion plans. There's one problematic exception, for this Mengele indulges in just as many hideous experiments as his original model, and that means some gory operating-table moments. Some might find that the gore distracts from the sort of wackiness one might expect of other Naziploitation fare, such as the venerable THEY SAVED HITLER'S BRAIN. All I can say is that the grossout scenes were too brief to bother me. The nice-guy protagonists succeed for the most part, but for one last thrill, the last couple of survivors have to figure out a way to beat Robot Hitler in a compelling climax. (All that said, neither NAZIS nor INDEPENDENT'S rates as a combative film.)
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