🎥 Movies of 2021, 53: Ice Station Zebra. I started this thinking it would continue my WWII Squad series, but it’s a Cold War movie. But, other than the Cold War vibe, it follows the conventions of the genre – an aging star leads a group of bland, characterless white dudes (and one Black person) to adventure! Only this time they fight the Commies instead of the Nazis.
Ernest Borgnine (doing the broadest possible Russian characterization) and Patrick McGoohan (doing a nervy, drunk Bond) are probably the main human reasons to watch this one. The rest of the cast forms a bland white blur, except for Jim Brown who is only in the movie to serve as a point of tension.
But this film wasn’t sold on story. Shot in Super Panavision 70 and released to the biggest screens available, this movie was sold on spectacle! And it looks great. The outdoor, real-world submarie shots are still cool. The studio shots look like, well, a modernist studio-version of a submarine.
