Excellent, a Must See

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I am going to be the first to admit this, but I am giving this film like two more stars than it really deserves only because I find Kathy Ireland super hot; she is especially so in this particular film. This film is also special in another way...it basically introduced me to what is now my favorite show, MST3K. It is also a bizarre film that combines elements from Journey to the Center of the Earth, Alice In Wonderland and The Road Warrior and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. That being said, it does not blend them correctly and it does not blend them well. It is also way to lighthearted of a film, trying to rely on humor that mostly falls flat, rather than say some extreme action, gore and perhaps a bit of skin. The film ends up being just to weak in every aspect and the only thing you have to see is a very attractive Kathy Ireland, which is nice, but not enough to support the weight of the film.The story has a girl that has a very annoying squeaky voice getting dumped by her boyfriend because she is not adventurous enough for him. Why they felt the need for Kathy to speak like this is beyond me, her voice is a bit like the one used by her character in the film, but has a more sexy quality to it as it is lower. It kind of sounds like Kathy was sucking helium before each line. Anyway, apparently her mother is dead and her dead is an explorer or something. He goes missing and is presumed dead, she travels to somewhere and she ends up falling into a hole and ends up in Atlantis...where they apparently drink Fosters cause there be lots of Australians there. She meets one guy who is seemingly the other star, but then some random dude becomes the girl's love interest. Lots of basement and boiler room shots found within as they try to mimic an underground city. Kathy's character gets chased, drugged and interrogated; however, she doesn't get nude at all and she very rarely wears anything nice and skimpy which makes one sad.As I mentioned above, this film was my first introduction to MST3K. I basically had a thing for Kathy back in the day and I saw here and stopped flipping the channel. Then I noticed the silhouettes, and noticed only one appeared to be human. I also found what they were saying about this film to be very funny. I ended up finishing the episode, but it would be a couple of more years before I could watch the show again as it was a free preview of comedy central, which we still did not get after the free preview was over. I had to wait till the show made it to the Sci Fi channel before I could really fall in love with the show.So, while this movie is pretty bad, it has some fond memories for me. It had a very attractive Kathy Ireland in like her only starring role, and it introduced me to MST3K. Granted, it was also just an unsuccessful mix of a bunch of films, it made the lead character hot, but very annoying sounding and its attempts at humor failed miserably. It would have been better had they not made the film so tame, as when making a low budget film you need something to distract the viewer from the fact it is a cheap film, but the film gets some props from me for the reasons listed above.

A California valley girl named Wanda Saknussemm (Kathy Ireland), desperately searching for a means to make a new start and escape her nerdish tendencies, goes to Africa in search of her absentee archaeologist father following reports he may have fallen into a bottomless pit only for her to stumble and fall down the same hole. She winds up in a bizarre and strange underground city named Atlantis which just might be at the center of the Earth. There she befriends a miner she calls "Gus" and continues searching for her long lost Papa. However those dwelling in the underground city have heard rumors of there being aliens from the surface world hidden amongst them and despite the government's constant denial that aliens exist on television, they still offer rewards for the capture of anyone who might be thought an "alien" making Wanda a target for many unscrupulous types.This is a relatively harmless fantasy time-waster. In fact, the non-discriminating fantasy viewer may actually enjoy this one. This is kind of like a California Valley Girl version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND with a bit of THE WIZARD OF OZ thrown in filtered through a BLADE RUNNER-esquire setting with the train of events playing out rather like SPACEHUNTER but this movie isn't anywhere near as good as any of those. I have to admit I actually had fun watching this though it's just so outrageous and outlandish in its approach. The sets too prove surprisingly effective for a low budget movie. Plus I always get a kick out of the state controlled television announcements which prove incredibly transparent in their intent. While this is definitely not for everyone (it stars Kathy Ireland who's really no actress, borrows most of its plot from other movies and things always feel a little too safe and sure for our leads), there are those who might find enjoyment here although it's a little tough to explain why exactly. Just the harmless fun of it all I guess.

Even in her glasses wearing geek mode Kathy Ireland is very easy on the eyes but her acting is not easy to watch. Most of the actors in the film either take it way over the top (beyond "campy fun") or act slightly embarrassed at being there. The effects and soundtrack are nothing special and fairly low budget. The plot line REALLY stretches ones ability to suspend disbelief. Catch this one to laugh at if it comes on a premium movie channel or network Saturday afternoon TV, but DO NOT waist money on this thing.One worthy mention for trivia purposes is that one of the underground mobsters is played by Deep Roy. Deep is now famous for playing (and doing it well) all the Oompa Loompas in Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

Albert Pyun presents his vision of the lost city of Atlantis - and it's a vision so cluttered up with claustrophobic settings, weird costumes and noisy, "quirky" minor characters that one thing is for sure: you want to get the hell outta there as soon as possible (unfortunately, it will take you about 80 minutes). The "Alice in Wonderland"-like story is meandering and uninteresting, and there was probably no actress in the world who could have turned this into a good movie, though Kathy Ireland makes an appealing (annoying voice and all) attempt. (*1/2)