Ice Station Zebra (1968)'s comments

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Matt Addis

apparently howard hughes watched this 150 times

2 years 7 months ago

Who ever imagined a submarine movie would start in space? That's Ice Station Zebra, a Cold War epic that is... well, take your pick of the available puns... dead in the water? Sunk before it starts? Glacially paced? I normally like procedurals, but in this case, there's so much dead air, I kind of lose track of what's happening in between people looking at gauges. Even the Arctic adventure it eventually becomes is padded beyond endurance. What a shame. All the set pieces are there - sabotage under the sea, a dangerous trek under the ice, a tense parlay with the Soviets - and Patrick McGoohan as a spy (you are Number 6!), but at two and a half hours, it doesn't build up tension so much as diffuse it with its slow burn approach. So we're left with beautiful submarine shots, because everything that's outside the sub, real or models, is gorgeous. The jets aren't bad either. The ice plain was never going to look real, but it's expansive. And the satellite stuff? Well, we can't have everything (in this case, physics). A lot of money on the screen, and it might even be exciting if you cut 30-45 minutes out of it.

4 years 6 months ago

Mozart78

Sub scenes? Great.
Hudson believable as a sub captain? Check.
Patrick McGoohan as a smarmy spy? You bet.
The ending? Hmm, I'm not buying it.

Overall, not a bad way to spend an evening...

9 years 1 month ago

Duke of Omnium

Almost a great action movie, brimming with Cold War paranoia, but let down by the implausible ending.

9 years 4 months ago