Movie: (2013): When giant monsters crawl out of the Atlantic Ocean and attack the Eastern Seaboard, the U.S. government is forced to trust a trio of mischievous soldiers who specialize in piloting gigantic robots, to defend America.
Opening: Intruder alert at Gizmonic Institute! Meanwhile, in the invention exchange, Growler helps out as J&tB show off their inflatable air dancer organ. Max demonstrates “supposi-stories.”
Segment 1: With the bots dressed in mech suits, the Mads demand a new song in the spirit of “Every Country Has a Monster.” Growler and M. Waverly and Gypsy help with “Get in Your Mech.”
Segment 2: Dressed like they are at an awards dinner, J&tB explain how they got their medals.
Close: Jonah wants to do some day drinking, but the bots suggest they pour out a little — actually kind of a lot.
Stinger: Red tells his tale. Buh-boom!
The New Normal: Growler and M. Waverly, once considered one-hit wonders, are now fixtures, including making regular appearances in the theater.
In pretty much every episode this season, M. Waverly is brought in in Gypsy’s bucket (which the never-explained ‘payload’ was in in season 11). Then he gets out in front of the theater seats, gives a riff and leaves. Growler comes in, riffs and leaves. Near the end, Waverly comes back, does a riff, then gets in the bucket and is taken out of the theater by Gypsy.
(23 votes, average: 3.70 out of 5)
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Thoughts:
• I cruised through the comments from the “rough draft” and I want to compliment everybody on their observations and opinions. There was some very thoughtful and even insightful commentary and not a lot of cross-talk and personal back and forth. Kudos.
• I know a bit about old bad movies but I don’t really keep close track of the new bad ones, so while I had heard of “Pacific Rim” and that it was bad (some commenters took issue with that view, but I can’t weigh in because I’ve never seen it), I had not heard of Asylum. But apparently others had, because I recall the announcement that one of theirs was going to be riffed filled some MSTies with trepidation.
• In the rough draft I asked what that “intruder alert” was about? A helpful commenter explained that it was Dr. Erhardt liberating Dr F. and Frank’s ashes? Oh. I should have figured that out. Duh.
• A bonehead (Deanna Rooney, Jonah’s wife btw) helps out Max with invention exchange.
• A bit of self-referencing going on in this episode: At movie sign, J&tB are sining “Patrick Swayze Christmas.” Later Max says: “It stinks! And not in the joke way.” Still later, in the theater, they say a minor character in the movie looks like “Joel Hodgson.”
• The song was another gem from Paul & Storm.
• Callback: “Packers!” (Giant Spider Invasion.)
• Catchphrases: “Bull butter!” and “Buh-boom!”
• Cast and crew roundup (very few this time): Writer Thunder Levin was the still photographer on “Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II.” That’s it.
• Fave riff: “This one’s more of a landscaping issue.” “What with the streets clogged with corpses and all…”
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Graham Greene is in this film too. he is a very underrated actor (and can be funny too)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz_l_0oioxQ
Atlantic Rim passes the Bechdel Test. The submarine operators exchange panicked reactions. Dr. Adams and Tracey about the halo headbands.
The Supposi-Stories also make literature a pain in the hinder. Literally.
I think I understand why Naval Air Station Pensacola refused permission to allow Asylum to shoot there.
So why were the pilots not told their mechs came with melee weapons until they were in the middle of a beatdown?
I think Graham Greene’s dignity is going to need its own dedicated bottle.
A bonehead (Tim Ryder, I think?)
I believe it’s Deanna Rooney, aka the newly introduced Bonehead #3. Here’s a still.
https://mst3k.fandom.com/wiki/File:SupposiStories.jpg
Favorite riffs
But they’re the heroes of the movie, so they’re always right.
Go, go, dour rangers!
LiveNation presents Daft Punk: Underwater Tour!
“What happened down here?”
Whatever it is, don’t show us.
“Holy crap! What is that?”
My prostate.
“You alright, Red?”
Please say no.
Godspeed, stock footage.
Baltimore has never looked better.
I know they didn’t have the money to rent emergency vehicles and crowds, but calling in a bomb threat? That’s beyond the pale!
Just because a monster’s attacking doesn’t mean you can’t get your steps in.
I liked it before the remodeling, when it was on fire.
Wasn’t this movie about robots fighting monsters? I’m lost.
It killed all our lab chimps, so that means you guys are next. Have fun.
That powerful mech suit is really gonna enhance his ability to beat up stoners in alleyways.
“Well, Geise, I can see that you’ve officially lost your mind.”
It’s not official yet, sir. Paperwork’s not in.
What won’t Elon Musk launch into space?
He blew up Heaven!
So now they go out for a well-deserved night of celebration.
Which ends with Red once again in the brig, this time for urinating on the dog of a visiting diplomat.
And the movie ends as it began, as a garbage fire.
Of the six episodes in The Gauntlet, this is probably my favorite.
“Mac and Me”, while effectively a rip-off/commercial, did have some quality in places and was generally innocuous. “Atlantic Rim” is just plain stupid. Really, I can only assume they figured the “heroes” would provide a distraction by getting killed while the real plan was being put together. And I can only assume Graham Greene figured this was his “Airplane!” and went with it.
As bad as the movie is, it does provide great riffing material. I thought Jonah & the ‘bots did well. I thought the host segments were good, though it’s a bit depressing when you realize that the way the guys talk in segment 2 is actually the way some real people talk, bro. I figured M. Waverly would be back, and I really didn’t mind the expanded role for him & Growler. And the “Intruder Alert” certainly had my attention.
I’m not sure they should routinely go with Asylum movies in the future, but this one turned out OK.
Atlanic Rim, was the first 21st century film riffed by MST3K. I’m curious if they’ll find something from 2000-2009, since it now represents a gap in the history of MST3K riffed films.
I think this may be the first film riffed where as far as I can tell everyone involved is still alive.
Release dates
July 9, 2013 (USA)
Aug. 1, 2013 (Germany)
Aug. 22, 2013 (Netherlands)
Sept. 18, 2013 (Sweden)
Nov. 2, 2013 (Japan)
March 3, 2015 (France)
Writer Hank Soon Jr., born Feb. 23, 1978
Actor Graham Greene, born June 22, 1952
Actor Anthony “Treach” Criss, born Dec. 2, 1970
Actor David Chokachi, born Jan. 16, 1968
Actor Larry Gamell Jr., born Feb. 12, 1963
Actor Eric C. Schmitz, born Oct. 2, 1971
Actress Megan Rebelo, born May 14, 1998 (possibly youngest person in a riffed movie?)
Producer David Michael Latt, born May 28, 1966
Line producer Chris Ray, born July 30, 1977
Dates:
March 25, 1991, The 1991 Academy Awards Ceremony was held, where Atlantic Rim actor Graham Greene was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Kicking Bird in Dances with Wolves. Joe Pesci won for Goodfellas.
April 2, 1999, Atlantic Rim actor Treach married rapper Sandra “Pepa” Denton of the group Salt-N-Pepa.
MST3K connections
Since most of the cast started their career after the original run went off the air, this was very limited.
Writer Thunder Levin was the still photographer on Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II
I hate this Asylum (Sharknado) dumb on purpose crap. The thing I don’t get is that Jonah and the bots slammed this crap in Reptilicus, then they turn around and use one of these cheap CGI wastes of time. WTF?
Wasn’t the intruder alert Dr Erhart liberating Dr F and Frank’s ashes?
Also, the Bonehead helping Max is played by Deanna Rooney – Jonah Ray’s wife
This one was the “deep hurting” of season 12. Sooooooo bad. Most low budget sci-fi used to have some sort of care put into. A lot of them could unintentionally funny. Atlantic Rim was a true “it’s a living” type of production.
Right. Forgot. Thanks.
I thought Joel learned his lesson with “Catalina Caper”… you can’t make fun of movies that are intentionally funny/bad. It’s just pointless.
And, call me old fashioned, but I don’t like them riffing on movies that were released after the original MST3K went off the air. Have they really riffed on ALL the widescreen color movies from the 20th Century that they can get the rights to?
Maybe they shouldn’t be?
(Darn, thought you were going to post the Maverick clip…He was a hoot in that one.)
Er, yyyeah: Most of the movies in S12 seemed to have been picked by reputation (“Cool, an ASYLUM movie!”) rather than riffability, some looked better on paper than they did in the theater, and the lack of good riffing seems to spend the season creating more instantly presumptive Mike-catchphrases, Thank-you-Bills, and Widdle-Babies. (The Thank-you-Bill riff-stretching gets particularly painful at the end of the season in “Killer Fish”, when it didn’t turn out to even the movie they were hoping.)
And those of us who keep channel-clicking past the Asylum movies on PlutoTV could have warned them: Remember when you just couldn’t wait to see “Battlefield: Earth”, because you thought it was going to be the wildest, wackiest, hee-yuck-eewwiest bad movie ever made, and what you got looked like those old Canadian cable movies USA Network used to show?
There’s more forced-riffs this season to fill long voids, and less of the movie making the riffs as the riff trying to make the movie that everyone in the audience is already supposed to know.
At least, if Producer Joel had to pick one to show off (“Look, fellow young MSTies, one of those Asylum thingies you demographically hate!”) Atlantic Rim was worth a few fun riffs, partly for paycheck-friendly Greene spending a weekend playing Col. Potter, and partly because our “rebel” hero is such an utter and complete jerk, and yes, it’s ME saying that.
Also, unlike certain rain-soaked Guillermo Del Toro films, it’s nice to see big robots in the daytime, once in a while.
Think they wrote themselves into a corner with Growler being part of S11’s Non-Cliffhanger (“So, anyway, guys, Growler came in with guns blazing, and…wait, don’t you want to hear this??”), and I’m still convinced M. Waverly was meant to be a one-joke poke at the Jim Henson group and (looks up IMDb) Walter from the ’11 Disney Muppets movie.
But now, with their becoming a Marketable Part of the New Netflix Franchise, Joel apparently wants to keep them around and write S12 appearances for them as permanent characters the New Netflix Kids expect. Not a shark-jump, but this is not going well…
Favorite riffs after I go back and look at the episode again. Darn, I was supposed to all week…
Again, only saw it in GIF form:
https://mst3kgifs.tumblr.com/search/atlantic+rim
(“Pizza Spatula” is called a Peel)
So this is basically a
Sci FiSYFY channel “original” movie?“Sooo…you guys good?”
I think this episode wasn’t quite as good as Mac and Me, but still above average, 4/5 stars. Does anyone else think they did a RiffTrax reference with Hadley saying “Line?”? I think it’s also kind of funny that Joel had taken a dig at RiffTrax about them making fun of Sharknado that was trying to be bad and they MST3K ends up making fun of another mockbuster.
Because of this movie I finally figured out a constant, recurring technical problem with these Asylum films and their like: Where most movies use a standard three act structure, these are just basically one act. Typically a single problem is introduced in the very beginning and almost nothing about it changes until the very end. Sure they’ll try to convince us there’s escalation and character development, but there really isn’t.
Pacific Rim is bad? I thought it was thought of as ok (haven’t seen it myself). 72% on Rotten Tomatoes and 6.9 on IMDb.
It’s giant robots punching giant monsters, and it knows it’s giant robots punching giant monsters. If you don’t love that, then yes it may be bad. But it was legitimately my favorite* movie of 2013.
*-there is a difference between “favorite” and “best”
I’ve seen Pacific Rim, and I didn’t think it was bad. It wasn’t going to win any Oscars, but I’d say more films are made to be entertaining (and therefore make money) than are made to win awards, and Pacific Rim was highly entertaining. It’s very good for what it is.
This, again, was for me a decent MST3K episode done on a bottom-of-the-barrel, worse-than-bad movie. While Mac & Me is still much worse, Atlantic Rim probably offers the emptiest cinematic calories ever foisted on the American viewing public: the characters are rough sketches of parodies of figures that are already stereotypes, the plot is the merest of suggestions, the special effects aren’t. I remember writing on the first WDT after S12’s release that the entire script was probably jotted down on a napkin during the first “brain”-storming session the crew held at the local Applebee’s. Talk about something I would never want to watch unriffed! Actually, this is perhaps worse: a movie that offers some laughs when riffed but is so bad I haven’t been able to watch the episode a second time. That’s not the MST way!
Still, I laughed several times, which is all you can hope for! Have to say I’m still extremely dubious about the need to add new robots to the cast: compared to the Crow, Servo & Gypsy I fell in love with long ago, M. Waverley and Growler have a generic, Jim Henson~Disney feel to them and don’t add a thing to the proceedings for me. In limited doses, though, they’re still bearable, if just.
SyFy showed them, but there were three companies making Mega-Pythons at the time: One company made the trilogy ending in “Boa vs. Python”, and that was shown on SyFy–Followed by Roger Corman and his SyFy deal getting into the game with “Sharktopus”, and other mix-‘n-match monster titles.
Asylum didn’t get into the game until they knocked off THOSE in 2008, with “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus”, and the legend was born.
(Looking back in IMDb to try and find the first Asylum knockoff, seems to be 2005’s “King of the Lost World”–no relation to Peter Jackson–and “Transmorphers” didn’t happen until two years later.)
It has what with anyone else would be the makings of an OK movie, but Del Toro had to go in on Full-Hardcore-Geek mode, and repel/confuse the regular mainstream audience, like he’s all set to do with next summer’s “Scary Stories”.
So…WHY do we get so excited whenever he makes a movie, again? I forgot.
Yes, that is what I was thinking when I saw that.
So, why do the heroes have to be such jerks? And they blew up half of New Orleans because, they just did not care. Maybe Joel should explain about anti-heroes again.
Oh, but the hero-of-color showed he has a soft side. And an amazing ability to sniff out the 12 yr old girl in the tavern and on the floor behind the bar, even though it made no sense why she was in there separated from her father in the first place! Why wouldn’t she just trust him as he pretends to be a super hero and jump on his back.
Of course it makes sense that General Bull Butter, snarling with doubt to begin with would be the new father that the team needed.
The movie also did a good job describing what the ocean floor looked like because they wouldn’t show it to us IN A MOVIE!!!
Good job J&tBs. I liked the self-deprecating song, the chummy water cooler talk in seg 2 and the riffing made me laugh. A solid episode I thought.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_nYT8WhFjk
M. Waverly is brought in in Gypsy’s bucket which the ‘payload’ was in in Season 11. Then he gets out in front of the theater seats, gives a riff and leaves. Growler comes in, riffs and leaves. Near the end, Waverly comes back, does a riff, then gets in the bucket and is taken out of the theater by Gypsy.
Is that what happens? All that scurrying around in the dark is hard to see…
Pacific Rim is actually Pretty Good, thank you.
There seems to be something of a generational difference in the comments posted so far. I loathe the labels popular media has put on people of different ages and so without them my observation is that this movie seems to have been made to the tastes of… younger viewers. Being a not younger viewer I must confess that I turned this episode off after about fifteen minutes. Therefore, I am unqualified to make any other comment.
The science fiction channel in Canada once scheduled a block of “mockbusters” (as late-night filler during a Christmas movie marathon, I seem to recall), and I recorded them in a “this might be amusing” mood. However, “Transmorphers” just seemed generally bad-in-a-drab-way, and I didn’t watch the other movies, which just happened to include “Atlantic Rim,” with the thought the people who watched them were the ones being “mocked.” I was therefore a little apprehensive about this movie winding up in “The Gauntlet,” but I have to admit the movie did seem more entertainingly bad, and I’d say I enjoyed the episode. (Of course, I also have to admit to a general interest in “giant robots” in animation, much of it from Japan, so maybe my judgment’s suspect to begin with…)
I used to roll my eyes whenever people talked about movies that were “too bad to be riffed.” I mean, riffing bad movies is the whole point of the show! The badder, the better, right?
Then this episode came along, and I had a dramatic change of heart. For the first time, I was faced with a movie that I just couldn’t take. It truly was too bad to be riffed. As a result, this is the ONLY episode of MST3k I have ever not been able to finish.
Yes, I’m glad some people liked this episode, but please… no more. No more Asylum movies.
I saw at least one interview where Jonah where he talked about Joel wanting to open the season with Atlantic Rim and close it with Mac & Me. Jonah said Joel was following the stand-up formula of opening a set with your second strongest joke and closing with your strongest. Jonah argued that people would watch Mac & Me first no matter where it was in the order, so they should place it first.
I can see why Joel might want Atlantic Rim to be first. It’s the newest film MST3K has riffed, and it’s ripped off from a big hit. Of all the films, it looks the most like something modern movie-watchers might watch. But I agree with Jonah that Mac & Me is the “name” film for younger gen-x/older millenials like him and myself.
I don’t really see the point in all of that. If there’s some reason why the riff needs to come from someone other than J&thB, then just have Gypsy or Waverly or whoever pop in, make the joke, and leave. And if there isn’t a reason, they let the guys in the theater do the riff.
MARSHAL STACKER PENTECOST: Today, we are canceling the apocalypse! (loud cheering erupts in the Shatterdome)
Also today, we are canceling all Asylum productions! (very loud, sustained cheering reverberates throughout the Shatterdome!)
I’ve been waiting six months to type that. Honestly I don’t remember much in the way of riffs, and the movie itself is bad but unmemorable, but it was an obvious candidate for MST3K riffing. In a nutshell, I call it an average episode. I may be biased given that I bought the Pacific Rim blu-ray and the soundtrack cd.
BECKET: Does Atlantic Rim have a pulse? MAKO MORI: We’ll fire some plasma cannon shots right at its heart. BECKET: No pulse.
Yeah, it is hard, but when it first happened in Mac and Me, I tried to look for it. Found it at the end of that episode.
I’m in agreement with some of the above commentators. This one was rough. And without the constant breaks of the original format, the hurting never lets up. I suspect I’ll be skipping this one most of the time.
Again, some impressively good riffing accompanying a mind bendingly bad movie. Some of the actors here seemed to be trying gamely to work with what they had. But this film is possibly the most egregious example of what Jonah described as cynical junk as opposed to sincere well intentioned junk. Just about everything in this movie reeks of an accountant’s cold calculations regarding the absolute bare minimum of resources, talent, and effort necessary to get a shameless rip off recorded on a disc and in to the discount bin at Wal-mart. Even the title just screams with a bullhorn, “We don’t care”. The makers of this movie make the crew that brought us Invasion of the the Eye Creatures look like a bunch of Care Bears by comparison. I like the new season but with the merciful exception of The Day Time Ended the movies really sit on my head and crush it.
This is one of those junk-movies that my friends make me watch after D&D games, like Moonbase or Iron Sky. Still, much like Space Mutiny it has the bad acting and stupid script that make it fun to make fun of. Of course, Space Mutiny looks almost-good in comparison to Atlantic Rim. !^P
They couldn’t even be bothered to make a cheap prop of a robot foot for the actors to stand in front of.
Hey- what I really liked about this movie was it was supposed to be in New Orleans, New York- some South/East cost place, but, when you see rescue scenes one can clearly see LA Fire and rescue, et. al. A nice entry into the canon. From a dude POV- Jackie Moore is very easy on the eyes. Got a lot of laughs out of the utter incompetence of the effort. Four Bull Butters.
I am soooo gonna steal that phrase!
Sir, I would be honored!
I remember that in the 80’s and 90’s entire conversations between guys could consist of nothing but the word “dude”. It sounds like “bro” has taken it’s place as the universal masculine syllable.
I talked about this on the MST3K Discussion forum, but one major issue I had with this episode was because the audio quality for the film and the riffers were about the same, I sometimes wasn’t sure where a line or joke was coming from.
There were instances where one of the characters in the movie cracked a joke, and i thought it came from Jonah or one of the Bots. Or vice versa, Jonah or the Bots made a riff, and i thought it was someone in the movie making the comment. It was kind of distracting.
If MST had stayed on Sci Fi with the Sci Fi/Fantasy/Horror restriction would they eventually have to resort to using Sci Fi Channel original movies?
…
Apparently this post is a game where you drink every time I type Sci Fi.
Sci Fi
Sci Fi
Sci Fi
(submarine dives)
“Whoooooo!”
“Breakfast Club?–Any ideas?”
“Graphics look science-y:”
(heroes do corny Right Stuff slow-walk)
“Soooo, guuuyyss, how was Maaaardi-Graaaas?….”
(“Fire, fire!”)
(as Beavis: ) “‘Heheh…Fire! Fire!”
(Greene flexes jowls dramatically)
“Ribbit…ribbit…”
Not as much need to point out Missing Riffs this season, although every time our “hero” refers to his bro as “Jimmy Boy”, who suddenly expected him to start whooping like a psychotic and trying to pick fights in bad Irish accents?
Good–Nice to know somebody else got the “Starting Neon Genesis Evangelion procedure: Injecting puberty into robot” riff.
(I wouldn’t normally sound out the anime quotient among the posters, but nobody got the “Lum & Abner” joke in the last thread, so…)
My take on Asylum is not that they’re intentionally bad ala Sharknado, but rather cynical cash-grabs riding the coattails of name movies (and used to rely heavily on easily confused video store patrons–“Here you go kids, I rented you that new movie Freezen you’ve been talking about”).
Anyway, yes, this one was my least favorite of the new season at first. It’s since grown on me, but it’s still at the bottom. One nice thing about newer movies is that they’re easier to see and hear. So that’s THE good thing. And Dude Bro’s over excited storytelling is a highlight. I mean, what the hell was that?
And especially if the hit movie happens to have a non-litigatable public-domain/historical/fairytale source, like the “Grimm Avengers”.
(Since they’d already gotten bitten by lawyers over “Dawn of the Hobbits”, “American Battleship”, “Trollz”, and what has now been retitled “From the Sea” after hearing from Del Toro’s lawyers–“Atlantic Rim: Resurrection” seems to be safe at the moment, however, since nobody really cared what an Uprising was.)
But wait, does that mean that “Legend of Aladdin” isn’t the REAL one? :( https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2019/01/the-asylum-announces-aladdin-mockbuster/
When people say Corman or Bert I Gordon are the Asylum of their day, it’s such an insult to Corman and Gordon. The Asylum clearly doesn’t care at all. At least the 50s flicks had a vibe to them. There’s really no reason to watch Atlantic rim. It’s fun-proof
Oh, and Sharknado is The Asylum, at least as the distributor
Probably no more so than the current version using made for Netflix originals to riff
“Are we ever going to find out what that “intruder alert” was about?”
I still don’t know what that deal with Gypsy appearing to leave a box in the theater and then again appearing later to remove it was about. I try not to sweat the small stuff any more, though. ;-)
Very well said. It succinctly captures all that I’ve been trying to express in far windier fashion for a while now: the level of cynicism in most of the later movies riffed on MST3K (CC, Sci-Fi, or Netflix) makes them far worse than the older ones that are earnest and goofy. They (Atlantic Rim, et al.) are indeed fun-proof, which is absolutely perfect word to describe them.