The Neptune Factor: An Undersea Odyssey (1973) (Movie Review)

   Following after 1968’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”, countless movies through the 70’s tried to re-capture its unique and mysterious out-off-body atmosphere. One of the most obvious, and subsequently most disappointing was the 1973 Sci-Fi titled “The Neptune Factor: An Undersea Odyssey”. Usually when I review older Sci-Fi movies, I try to bring awareness to overlooked or underrated gems that may go unnoticed by general audiences, but this is an exception. This review will serve as a counter point to my previous Ocean themed Sci-Fi review of 1961’s “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”. I described that movie as a dated spectacle for modern viewers, but still a great movie on its own, and one that I recommended modern viewers to look into. “The Neptune Factor: An Undersea Odyssey” by contrast is an example of what happens when a movie tries to emulate two previous classics, and turns into a disaster. Literally, this film tries to merge the underwater excitement of “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” with the slow-moving atmosphere of “2001: A Space Odyssey”, resulting in … well, a really bad movie.

  The, um … “adventure”, begins with a research facility out in the Ocean, who are studying marine life. Things take a disastrous turn when a freak earthquake sinks an underwater lab, and takes three divers with it. Fearing for the lives of their missing crewmen, a team assembles in an untested navy vessel called The Neptune, and the mission is on to dive into unexplored ocean depths in an effort to rescue the three-missing people. 

Along the way, they discover a cavern full of seemingly ordinary fish … except their giant size. So, it’s a mater of driving this small test model sub around super-sized fish before the stranded divers run out of oxygen. Right off the bat, this movie’s first big problem is an emotional disconnect with the driving goal of our main characters. We see a small glimpse of the missing divers in the opening of the film, but not enough to connect to them, and when they go missing, it’s impossible to remember either their names, or even what their faces look like. The movie never even bothers to cut to a scene of the divers trying to survive, and instead they’re just kept off screen until the very end. It’s kind of hard to care about the end goal when you don’t really care about the people that need rescuing. Things get even more mediocre with the rescue team, as everyone is one-note, not very interesting, and they don’t even have much to say for themselves. They literally spend the majority of the film looking out the window of the sub and stair in frightened aw at the fish. The closest we get to a character is a business man who’s aiming to cover the insurance of the missing ship, and at some point, learns to put the safety of the people first, but it’s very underplayed.   

  So, with stakes that aren’t very engaging, and wooden leads, all we have left to rely on are the creatures and the effects … oh boy. I first saw this movie years ago when I was a young teenager, who was really getting into classic Sci-Fi movies. The first thing that drew my attention to this film was the art work on the poster, illustrating encounters with these awesome looking killer beasts and giant worms. Unfortunately, nothing ever lived up to the excitement of the art work on the cover. Things are off to a rocky start as it takes over an hour before any giant sea creatures appear on screen, and the longer it takes for them to arrive, the more disappointing their reveal is. 

In an attempt to make the giant fish seem more genuine, and less like traditional stop-motion or puppets, this movie utilized footage of real marine life, and tries to pass that off for amazing creatures. It doesn’t take long for the films “spectacle” to get boring. It literally looks like footage of a toy sub passing by ordinary fish from a pet store aquarium. The whole beat of the film goes like this, cut to group shot of people looking out a window, cut to stock footage of generic looking fish, lather, rinse, repeat. Here’s an example of what passes for an action sequence, cut to shot of diver swimming through sea-weed, cut to unrelated shot of a lion fish, and keep cutting back and forth between the two shots until diver finds a safe place. There’s also a hilariously unexciting sequence in which we watch a crab (or lobster) of some sort playing with a toy sub, which is supposed to pass for an exciting creature attack. I’d say the movie is recommendable to someone that enjoys looking at marine life, but even that novelty wears off, as shots linger on individual fish for way to long. Even the variety of fish on display are way to ordinary for the films own good.

  The biggest issue of all, beyond the flat characters, and average ocean creatures … this movie is relentlessly slow moving, and I mean SSSLLLOOOWWW MOOOVVVING!!!!! I’m not going to pretend that I was a fan of “2001: A Space Odyssey”, but it did at least create a unique atmosphere, and was all around an absorbing out-of-body experience. This movie fails to create any atmosphere, or generate any kind of psychedelic intrigue. It’s just a tediously long series of events, and without either the excitement or atmosphere to make the experience worthwhile. Let me put it this way, the movie has run time of only an hour and a half, yet it feels like five hours are drained from you. Even the rescue at the end doesn’t amount to much, we find the survivors trapped by stock-footage of eels, which are supposed to be attacking them, but they’re clearly different pieces of film integrated with the divers. One of them gets “eaten”, while the others get rescued. Hugs all around, they don’t exchange anything else beyond that, close with a big pull-out shot of the surface, and the whole thing just stops. 

  

  There’s very little else to say about this one … boring characters, boring stakes, boring fish obstacles, it’s just a plain boring and uneventful experience. When compared to previous Sci-Fi Ocean adventures like “20’000 Leagues Under the Sea” or my previously reviewed “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”, this is just an embarrassing attempt to follow-up on the ground work they started. What’s really sad is that the film is competently made, the direction and character performances are all passable, and their feels like genuine effort. I’d even argue that once in a while there’s a unique looking aquatic creature on screen. Still, it’s just not enough to recommend this snooze fest of an under-water adventure.  

  

Thanks for reading my review of the 1973 Sci-Fi "The Neptune Factor: An Undersea Odyssey” ... and do continue to enjoy the movies you love.