The late Howard Hughes (the reclusive multi-billionare, eccentric/weirdo that never cut his fingernails, peed in milk bottles lest his urine be stolen, and employed an army of trusty Mormons to cater to his every whim, and oh yeah, was a notable pilot/engineer/movie producer) firmly believed "Ice Station Zebra" was literally the finest motion picture ever made, and for a time even had the movie on an endless loop on a projector playing non-stop in his sleeping area. And Saul Goodman (played by Bob Odenkirk in "Better call Saul" and "Breaking Bad") even names his corporation after the movie ("Ice Station Zebra Associates"). So what's it all about? WHAT could be the amazing block-buster that'll change your life plus bleach your teeth in only one viewing according to pop culture?
"Ice Station Zebra" is yet another take on an Alister Maclaine novel, this one about an American nuclear sub that is on a top-secret mission to locate some important satellite film that has come down from space to land somewhere at the north pole. Both the Americans and the Russians badly want this film and are more than willing to kill to retrieve it. So the film is a race to retrieve the film: US Navy submarine plus a complement of dodgy spy types vs. Soviet paratroopers supported (for no apparent reason) by a single flight of Mig fighters, all in competition to grab the satellite film first.
Not a bad plot overall (and if anything it does foreshadow the later, and better submarine film "The Hunt for Red October" of 1990) but the way it unravels is not nearly as dramatic as it could have been. The elements of tension and conflict are there, but are spoiled by its slow pacing overall, the static nature of the film, and the obvious on-screen cost-cutting done by the producers.
The movie takes place primarily in only two places: inside the American submarine "Tigerfish" and Ice Station Zebra itself. Too much of the movie looks colorless and drab because that's exactly what these surroundings are like in real life. More than half the movie is spent inside the (very cramped and quite dull) interior of the "Tigerfish", but once the men (because there isn't one female in this whole movie) climb out of the sub at the North Pole, it doesn't get any better. The greys and greens of the submarine are merely exchanged for the (fake) endless white expanse of "the arctic". "Ice station zebra" and its environs just looks exactly like the sound stage that it is... and this does not help the visual much.
Also the movie has an odd mix of first-class model work along with some amazingly bad effects as well. The exterior submarine model work is impressive and reasonably life-like - but the effect is somewhat spoiled by the rest of it. The viewer cannot fail to notice the cheap scale models in use to show several Russian Mig fighters on their way to Ice Station Zebra. In this scene it's a toss-up which is worse, the badly filmed and poorly made model airplanes or the cheap rear projection work of the background behind them.
The plot is only murky and mysterious until it gets explained, and then it's a bit underwhelming. And by the end, the viewer may be feeling cheated as the payoff to watching this rather clunky story unfold. All in all, I've seen many worse movies - but it's just disappointing to watch what could have been a classic turn into an over-produced, under-budgeted and slightly boring movie.
"Ice Station Zebra" is yet another take on an Alister Maclaine novel, this one about an American nuclear sub that is on a top-secret mission to locate some important satellite film that has come down from space to land somewhere at the north pole. Both the Americans and the Russians badly want this film and are more than willing to kill to retrieve it. So the film is a race to retrieve the film: US Navy submarine plus a complement of dodgy spy types vs. Soviet paratroopers supported (for no apparent reason) by a single flight of Mig fighters, all in competition to grab the satellite film first.
Not a bad plot overall (and if anything it does foreshadow the later, and better submarine film "The Hunt for Red October" of 1990) but the way it unravels is not nearly as dramatic as it could have been. The elements of tension and conflict are there, but are spoiled by its slow pacing overall, the static nature of the film, and the obvious on-screen cost-cutting done by the producers.
The movie takes place primarily in only two places: inside the American submarine "Tigerfish" and Ice Station Zebra itself. Too much of the movie looks colorless and drab because that's exactly what these surroundings are like in real life. More than half the movie is spent inside the (very cramped and quite dull) interior of the "Tigerfish", but once the men (because there isn't one female in this whole movie) climb out of the sub at the North Pole, it doesn't get any better. The greys and greens of the submarine are merely exchanged for the (fake) endless white expanse of "the arctic". "Ice station zebra" and its environs just looks exactly like the sound stage that it is... and this does not help the visual much.
Also the movie has an odd mix of first-class model work along with some amazingly bad effects as well. The exterior submarine model work is impressive and reasonably life-like - but the effect is somewhat spoiled by the rest of it. The viewer cannot fail to notice the cheap scale models in use to show several Russian Mig fighters on their way to Ice Station Zebra. In this scene it's a toss-up which is worse, the badly filmed and poorly made model airplanes or the cheap rear projection work of the background behind them.
The plot is only murky and mysterious until it gets explained, and then it's a bit underwhelming. And by the end, the viewer may be feeling cheated as the payoff to watching this rather clunky story unfold. All in all, I've seen many worse movies - but it's just disappointing to watch what could have been a classic turn into an over-produced, under-budgeted and slightly boring movie.