FF 2009 Review. Under The Mountain

This film is based on a very popular New Zealand fantasy novel by Maurice Gee and was adapted once before as a TV series in the 80's. This time Black Sheep director Jonathan King takes it under his wing and updates it for today's generation.

Theo and Rachel are twins living in the country side of New Zealand who seem to have an telepathic bond between each other. One day when returning from school they get the terrible news that their mother has died in an accident and soon after the kids are sent to relatives in Auckland for a taste of the better life. While Rachel seems to be dealing better with the passing of her mother Theo has become a brooding loner and as such has severed the telepathic link between them. The kids are staying at a lovely house by a large lake which is an ancient volcano crater and in fact there are volcano craters all over Auckland which Theo becomes obsessed with for some reason. The twins also notice a smelly and creepy looking house by the edge of the lake, owned by the equally smelly and creepy Wilberforce family who seem to take a similar interest in him and his sister. Ad to the fact that an older gentleman, a Mr Jones seems to think that the twins are destined to destroy century old creatures dwelling under the volcano craters in Auckland and saving the world from annihilation. It's hard out there for a teen in New Zealand apparently.

Since I was at the right age when The Goonies, Explorers and The Monster Squad first came out I've been enamored with teen adventure movies with a slightly darker twist to them, who don't resort to dumbing down the story or talking down to its audience. The sad thing is that those types of movies are very very hard to come by these days, with advocacy groups demanding that these films be castrated and made as safe as possible so they don't have explain anything to their children.

I was hoping that Under The Mountain would be an 80's throwback in that sense that it wouldn't talk down to its viewers and retain a dark and scary feel to it and in a way it succeeds in that department. It is quite dark and I'm sure that the younger generation might find it scary at places it's just that I felt that it is missing the "oomph" to make a home run, for me at least.

The film feels rushed in the story department and one feels that there was allot more material in the book that was cut for time, especially the last half of the film. I wanted to know more about these slimy tentacle creatures that were guarding the Cthulhu-esque monsters under the volcano craters but we only get a glimpse of that. 

The performances are good, the kids handle themselves well, especially Leon Wadham as their cousin Ricky who has real comic flair. I was disappointed with Sam Neill as the mysterious Mr. Jones who seemed bored most of the time and doesn't pull off a convincing crazy old man. Oliver Driver was bland as Mr. Wilberforce and it didn't help that his makeup was uninspired and fake looking.

There are some good FX moments in the film but most of the time it was fairly weak for a WETA project, the transforming slime creatures were especially poorly made and again things felt rushed making it look like something from the Syfy Channel at times.

The cinematography by Richard Bluck is gorgeous however making Auckland look like a paradise on earth and its monster dwelling underbelly quite scary looking.

Maybe I'm just getting too old for these types of films or maybe people aren't making them as well as they did in the past. What ever the case is this project missed the mark for me at least and it is a shame because I think the story is there it's just that the filmmakers felt the need to rush through it which takes away the impact it might have. Maybe it is a better idea to adapt it as a TV series rather than a single movie.