20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

Directed by: Richard Fleischer

Starring: Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Paul Lukas

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a perfect example of why movies made specifically to show off some new technology have a really steep half-life of being interesting. Even with a solid story behind it, this movie is still 70% underwater footage just for the sake of showing stuff underwater, and since that’s nothing special anymore, it’s just boring.

Three survivors of a destroyed warship find their way to the futuristic (at the time) submarine which destroyed their ship, captained by an antisocial jackass named Nemo. The survivors are taken more or less captive and try to escape a few times, then they fight a giant squid, then Nemo blows up his island full of brilliant inventions that he’s been collecting because he doesn’t think humanity is well enough adjusted to use them yet.

I like the story, don’t get me wrong, and James Mason is a really good Nemo (I also like Peter Lorre as the sidekick sort of character, but that’s just because he’s awesome), but this movie is really boring. And most of the time when things are actually happening, it’s revolving around Kirk Douglas’ character, who is ANNOYING AS SHIT. For me, it’s Douglas that really drives this movie down. No number of cool giant squid attacks could make up for that smarmy bastard.