"The Phantom Empire" stars Ross Hagen and Dawn Wildsmith as low-rent salvage experts hired by rich girl Suzy Stokey to investigate caves that could potentially contain a windfall of jewels. With Jeffrey Combs (a paleontologist) and Robert Quarry (a mineralogist) in tow, they discover a tribe of sexy cavewomen, Robby the Robot, and B movie goddess Sybil Danning as a feisty alien queen.
Admittedly, "The Phantom Empire" is awfully slow to start, but at least director-producer-co-writer Fred Olen Ray has a sense of humor about what he does, much like his peer Jim Wynorski. The movie is VERY goofy nonsense, but it's too irreverent to dismiss outright. What helps is that scene-stealer Wildsmith has a plethora of sardonic dialogue, as well as constant unimpressed reactions to all the insane stuff the characters experience.
The movie does also benefit from the presence of Michelle Bauer, who, like Danning, is a constant welcome presence in diversions like this; here she plays a mute cave bunny who wears little and is always helping out our heroes. But the movie never really hits its stride until Sybil shows up. (About 55 minutes into the running time.) There are some mildly amusing stop-motion dinosaurs that wouldn't past muster in a Ray Harryhausen picture, but let's face it: Sybil and Michelle are the reasons why many guys will enjoy it as much as they do.
At its best, this is an agreeable update of Z-grade movies of decades past, a mash-up of "The Lost World" and "The Time Machine", with dime store versions of the Morlocks from the latter story.
Six out of 10.
Admittedly, "The Phantom Empire" is awfully slow to start, but at least director-producer-co-writer Fred Olen Ray has a sense of humor about what he does, much like his peer Jim Wynorski. The movie is VERY goofy nonsense, but it's too irreverent to dismiss outright. What helps is that scene-stealer Wildsmith has a plethora of sardonic dialogue, as well as constant unimpressed reactions to all the insane stuff the characters experience.
The movie does also benefit from the presence of Michelle Bauer, who, like Danning, is a constant welcome presence in diversions like this; here she plays a mute cave bunny who wears little and is always helping out our heroes. But the movie never really hits its stride until Sybil shows up. (About 55 minutes into the running time.) There are some mildly amusing stop-motion dinosaurs that wouldn't past muster in a Ray Harryhausen picture, but let's face it: Sybil and Michelle are the reasons why many guys will enjoy it as much as they do.
At its best, this is an agreeable update of Z-grade movies of decades past, a mash-up of "The Lost World" and "The Time Machine", with dime store versions of the Morlocks from the latter story.
Six out of 10.