Altantis is found.This movie begins so well in the first 30 minutes or so (the diving bell under attack, the octopus attacks the ship) but once we get to Atlantis the film becomes less pleasing.The diving bell footage will bring back memories or Irwin Allen's Voyage to the Botttom of the Sea series and the full-scale octopus all over the ship would have to go down as one of the best filmed moments of 1970s sci-fi cinema.On top of the first 30 minutes, is a rich and lavish music score that brings the whole thing to life.But as I said above, the quality is not maintained and you almost get the feeling that another less experienced director took over the flick once they all get to Atlantis. Too bad.

Viewers know what to expect from a 1970s film with Doug McClure in it, adequate acting, dodgy special effects, unconvincing monsters and a leading lady not too shy about displaying her ample boosom. It is for all of these reasons that I love his films, none will ever win an Oscar but if Oscars were awarded purely for the entertainment derived from watching a film then Doug's mantelpiece would have been groaning under the weight of gold statuettes. The story lines are always "inventive" and a bit ridiculous, there is usually a supporting actor in each of his films who went on to become more successful than poor Doug doomed to be an eternal "B" movie actor. I loved his films back in the 70s and I still love them now, brilliant all of them.

This was the fourth - and last - fantasy adventure for the actor-director team of Doug McClure and Kevin Connor after THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1974; undeniably the best of the bunch), AT THE EARTH'S CORE (1976) and THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT (1977).The result - silly and terminally juvenile - is a disappointment: besides wasting a good cast (Daniel Massey, Michael Gothard and Cyd Charisse), the sci-fi trappings of the plot are ill-suited to the material; the hokey monster effects, then, seal the fate of this low-budget venture. In fact, the location shooting (in Malta, no less, and the smaller neighboring island of Gozo) is among the film's few assets!

"Harrihausen stop-motion animation in all its choppy glory". Where? I didn't see any, it all looked like sock puppets, guys in rubber suits and wood and canvass models to me, standard Amicus/Rice-Boroughs effects. If they had have used stop-motion the effects would have been a lot better, take the Empire Strikes Back made three years later or the Golden Voyage of Sinbad made four years earlier. Please, please don't say the effects were good for the Seventies, because in all fairness King Kong which was made 45 years earlier has better effects and there currently appears to be a trend to excuse anything made before the advent of CGI as "Good effects for their day". As if Spielberg would have used guys in suits a la Godzilla to make Jurassic Park if CGI hadn't have been around in 1992! It's a fun film, however, and very enjoyable, I liked it as a kid and like all the Amicus/Rice-Boroughs films I try to see them when they're on.