MOVIE REVIEW - Phantom

Every now and again a movie falls into the "what a shame" department.  And that sadly is the new in limited release, Phantom.  

Phantom is loosely based on the 1968 incident of the Soviet submarine K-129 during the height of the cold war between The United States and the former Soviet Union.   K-129 was a Soviet sub that carried nuclear missile's sank and disappeared in strange fashion.   There has been tons of speculation since then about what her actual mission was.  Why did she sink?  And did the sub go rogue and attempt to perfect first strike nuclear capability.   And did it try to start a nuclear war?   This movie speculates the latter.

Phantom has a great cast with Ed Harris, David Duchovny and Julian Adams.   This is a classic "submarine" movie that virtually all takes place on the sub. It shows the inner workings of the Soviet sub command and the plot from the KGB to overtake the sub, and attempt to begin WWIII.  Should be noted again, this is not a true story, but based on some kind of legend from the Cold War. The writers have their theory and that's fine.

Clearly the writer has a real passion for this subject matter, and story.  But sadly, they have a hard time translating that to an effective movie.   The story they write is interesting enough most of the time, but predictable dialogue, and really unoriginal filming hold this back.  It also is a bit disjointed, and has an ending that may have you scratching your head a bit, as it is an attempt at cool but falls flat.  I was really surprised by the lack of imagination here, the the uninspired writing with such a cool canvas to paint on.  Original concept, but same old same old in the end.  It looks and feels like 20 other submarine movies.

The performances are fine, with what they had to work with, and honestly this is not a bad movie by any means.  It just lacks the punch it needs to be next level, or at least be a nice surprise in the middle of winter.

Phantom, just a shame.  Should have been much better.