It's a shame we'll never get to see the director's actual vision for this movie because it was cut from 3 hours to 90 minutes by the studio, because what is here is quite cool, even though it's chopped so badly that in some cases the sound mix is way off. There's something neat trying to get out, but we can only see what's here and say, could have been more.

Its hard to rate a movie like this. The environments, photography, creature body suits and effects, Tangerine Dream soundtrack, and Jurgen Prochnow were fantastic. Unfortunately it was badly maimed when it was cut in half to be of normal theater running time, so characters and relationships change so suddenly and inexplicably as to be completely absurd, and most viewers didn't know this. And, frankly, some of the actors, while being good sports and well-intentioned, were pretty bad hams. So if you take the really good, the really bad, and the isolated knowledge that the movie was forcibly butchered by studio requirements you end up with a movie that some people love, some people hate.... a cult classic. Sadly I don't think it was ever even released in the U.S. on DVD??? For many years I wish I had a way to contact Michael Mann and ask him if he has the other half of the movie or if the studio kept it buried somewhere, I would dearly love to see the rest of it, even if its just raw footage. "Where am I from? I am..... from you!".

I only watched this because Jurgen Prochnow was in it. This was as opposite to 'Das Boot' (that he was in) as you could possibly get. I couldn't believe it. What a shocker! The whole story is pointless and superficial. The characters are two dimensional at best, just vague outlines and either good or bad and the dialogue is simplistic and childish. Somewhere in the middle of this most unmemorable movie the lead female and the mysterious weird male meet and have sex for absolutely no reason as far as the plot goes. The sex is completely irrelevant to anything at all and the two characters have hardly even spoken to each other. There are a lot of pointless special effects that just look like something stuck on for the sake of it. Wow, Jurgen must have needed money BADLY to do this.

At times, THE KEEP is very atmospheric, foreboding and suspenseful, with solid acting by Ian McKellen and Jurgen Prochnow. Unfortunately, THE KEEP was a troubled production (its story should emerge in a KEEP documentary to be released in 2017). In short, weather conditions were difficult, Mann kept re-visualizing the film (especially its primary villain) during production, and worst of all, his head Effects expert, Wally Veevers, died during early post-production, leaving a number of key effect scenes unfinished. Paramount then refused further production monies, time for proper sound mixing, and edited the rough film's 210 minutes down to a "theater-friendly" 96 minutes, resulting in numerous plot holes. Paramount's brief theater release was followed by home video on VHS, but in part due to rights issues over the music (a moody yet haunting score by Tangerine Dream) has kept THE KEEP from an official Paramount DVD release. In recent interviews (also part of the upcoming documentary), Michael Mann showed little interest in revitalizing this film.