Nazis at the Center of the Earth

After much thought of doing it, I decided to turn on the Netflix and check the stream feed and I came across a gem. We will be traveling to Antarctica where apparently the Nazis live under the ground or something.  I have a strong feeling this movie will not be syncing up with any Pink Floyd lyrics.  These types of movies are pre-spoiled so I will be freely giving out plot, character, and other sorted details.  Ok, here we go.

Joseph-J-Lawson-Nazis-at-the-Center-of-the-Earth-Movie-Poster_7 The movie of course starts with a flashback to WWII Europe..no credits, just the title and right into the action.  The set looks like my uncle’s back yard with a cardboard airplane hangar.  Joseph Mengale, some kind of machine, and a bunch of guys they grabbed from a local bar who are supposed to look German are unloading something from a truck.  It is the end of the war and it looks like they are trying to escape with dangerous technology.  This leads to a fantastic tank attack by allied forces, which was a single tank that was clearly a leftover miniature from a Godzilla movie and what looks to be about 3 soldiers.  Not sure why the German lookout guy yelled tanks!..there was just the one and it is clearly a toy.  Mengele escapes the assault by killing 10 guys via headshot with a pistol from about 200 yards each and then jumps on the airplane. The same allied solider was shot in the head 5 different times from different angles…brilliant!  A solid start and this looks to be a total SyFy channel level movie.

We are now in Antarctica where two people are standing in the snow. One of them is Dominique Swain.  She is a main character but the dude with her is clearly toast…let’s call him Ensign Johnson since he will be dead soon.   It seems like they are shooting this scene in a small room covered in white sheets or in front of a giant glass of milk, not sure which…seriously the background is just completely white like they are standing in front of a bed sheet. They are drilling, hit some kind of metal, and are then surrounded and taken prisoner by Nazis who still have the same uniforms from the 1940s.  They must have a great dry cleaner.  The weapons look 1940s style but there was clearly some weird blue stuff involved after an explosion from on old timey grenade.  I am sure that will come into play later.  The next bunch of time was introducing the other characters at a science base nearby…typical assortment of cattle for the slaughter.  The scientists are studying something but they didn’t tell us what, only that two people were drilling in the ice looking for something.  I guess this is a choose your own adventure part. I would be shocked if any of these people survived the movie.  Jake Busey is in this which is fucking sweet and he plays the head scientist.  That is probably the only time you will see Jake Busey and scientist used in the same sentence that does not also involve the word autopsy.

The rescue team has been sent out to find our lost drilling team and has been tooling around in the snow for hours, yet no one seems a bit cold.  Probably would have been a good idea to keep someone back at the base.  Busey is acting a bit shady, and not the fun Busey kind of shady.  The bad acting kind.  No doubt he is going to be a bad guy at some point.  Every time they show these people in the snow there is nothing but a plain white background…I mean can’t you at least spring a few bucks for a green screen and some stock footage.

After a terrible edit, we are back with Swain and she escapes her Nazi cell using a dinner fork and finds her friend on an operating table.  Seriously the door looked to weigh about 200lbs but her dinner fork was the perfect tool to hold and pry it open.  Ensign Johnson has been completely skinned and it was put on some other guy in the same room.  He is out cold and is wearing Ensign Johnson’s face, running the risk of a John Woo lawsuit. She runs away and down some hallway and finds a meat freezer filled with bodies, random meat, limbs, etc.  This is either spare parts for the Nazi soldiers or she stumbled into some kind of underground Arby’s storage facility.  I hope it’s the Arby’s thing, I could go for a beef and cheddar right about now.  Oh yeah, Swain gets captured again and ends up on an operating table.  Who comes in to operate?  You guessed it, Mengele and he hasn’t seemed to age at all since the beginning of the movie…I am sure that will be explained later…or not, you never can tell with these movies.

Back with the rescue team and they suck, I want them all to get skinned.  None of them can act and they are all so cliché it is beyond belief.  They have spent 10 minutes walking in snow talking about nothing.  They find a giant hole and two of them venture down and discover a secret cavern.  It is huge and apparently it is Southern California once you get past all the ice and snow, complete with mountains, trees, sun, etc.   As they walk, Busey tells a story about how they found middle earth, Nazis controlling Antarctica, blah, blah, blah.  They enter a hangar and are quickly surrounded by duck walking Nazis in gas masks with electronically altered guns.  According to this movie, to electronically alter a gun you just have to glue random computer parts to it.  The big twist: Busey is a Nazi and is working for Mengele.  How predictably shitty a twist that was #shyamalan. This whole sequence should just have a huge blinking sign in the upper right that says PLOT, PLOT, PLOT so we know not to fall asleep.  Mengele explains how they have been hiding out, plotting world takeover, blah blah blah.  They stay alive by using robot parts and Busey would bring them a steady supply of scientists from above for harvesting human organs, limbs, etc.  Why would anyone agree to go to Busey’s outpost if all the people there keep dying?  Swain appears and she is now a Nazi, complete with stylish blue beret.  They decide to make the scientists help them before skinning them all for spare parts.

After 30 minutes of random crap which includes antibiotics to cut infections, arguments with Mengele, and a Nazi zombie gang rape of a scientist..they aren’t really zombies but they sure looked like it.. we finally we see the machine from the beginning and will find out what it is for.  Busey found out his chick is preggers so he is going to suck out the fetus for the stem cells.  Pretty gross so thankfully they don’t show much. Good lord this movie sucks bad.  The fetus stem cells are then injected into the machine and HOLY FUCK ROBOT HITLER!… that’s right, ROBOT HITLER.  Robot Hitler is basically the Iron Giant with a Hitler head in a jar. This is the kind of payoff that takes a movie from just bad to awesomely bad.  I just noticed there is some random guy in a green shirt that has survived the whole movie without saying a single line. There is he, who the fuck is that dude? 

Robot Hitler is now giving a speech, could care less what it says, he looks so fucking ridiculous.    Oh wow….their whole base is actually a giant Nazi spaceship.  I also just realized this whole movie was done with just 10 actors, which includes the fire fight in the beginning.

So they are trapped on the Nazi UFO headed out to drop flesh eating bacteria on all non-Aryan countries, as Mengele lies on the ground with his throat cut.  Do the Nazis realize there are no actual aryan countries and hence will have to bomb the whole planet? Not very well thought out.  Some random fighting ensues and all of a sudden green shirt guy is talking and is dominating the rescue.  He has killed like 5 Nazis and is somehow now the hero of the movie.  Just a quick note, this is easily some of the worst editing I have ever seen in a movie.  It bounces around all over the place.  The Nazi UFO has also been seen by an Australian plane, complete with a crew with really bad accents.  They are shot down, along with another group of fighter jets who instead of shooting at it, just fly around the UFO is tight circles until they are shot down.  They didn’t even get one shot off, what the hell were they doing, taking pictures?

The rest of the movie involves a long chase with Robot Hitler and while Busey and his chick blow themselves up, which brings down the UFO.  He hugs her during it but you sucked out her baby to make a Robot Hitler, I don’t see how you think she still likes you.  In a sad moment, green shirt guy is run through by Robot Hitler and tossed in the corner.  Godspeed green shirt guy, you will be missed.  Eventually Robot Hitler is killed by injecting flesh eating bacteria into his head jar after a chase scene on the ice and he sinks into the water.

Well that is basically it.  Robot Hitler was killed in a really terrible fight with Swain and her man and there was no sequel setup which made me sad.  This was fun and it easily one of my “so bad that it is good” movies.  Not sure if I will stay with the same review format for next time but I can’t wait to watch my next low rent Netflix movie.  Until then, tune into SyFy Channel this week for Sharknado 2…should be a blast.

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3 thoughts on “Nazis at the Center of the Earth

  1. Before I read this I was only 99.5% sure I never wanted to see this movie now I am 100% sure. I love the #shamalyan and the busey is acting kind of shady….not the bad acting type of shady lol. I love that it was like southern CA in the tavern….who writes this crap.

  2. Thanks for the review. “No setup for a sequel”? Alas, did you stay through to the very, very end after the credits? Time to dig out the disk again and this time with commentary. Enjoy! 😉 JJL

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