DVD Reviews

Under the Mountain – DVD Review

By Jeff Swindoll Aug 12, 2010, 20:30 GMT

Teenage twins Rachel and Theo travel to Auckland to stay with relatives following the sudden death of their mother. Where there was once a psychic bond between them, now there is a rift as Theo, particularly, refuses to confront his grief. Rachel reaches out to him, but is rebuffed. Staying with their Aunt Kay and Uncle Cliff on Lake Pupuke, the twins are fascinated by the volcanic lake and the ...more

Redheaded wonder twin powers activate!  The 1979 novel by New Zealand author Maurice Gee was adapted into a 1982 TV miniseries and now hits the big screen with Sam Neill and effects by WETA.  

Red-headed teenage twins Rachel (Sophie McBride) and Theo (Tom Cameron) have recently lost their mother to a car accident.  Their distraught father sends them to Auckland, New Zealand to temporarily stay with their Uncle Cliff (Matthew Chamberlain), Aunt Kay (Micheala Rooney), and cousin Ricky (Leon Wadham). 

The twins have a seemingly psychic bond but Theo has become more headstrong and rejects this communication since the death of his mother.  When they arrive at their Uncle’s modern house they notice a rundown house on the lakeshore.  This is the home, and ex-funeral home, of Mr. Wilberforce (Oliver Driver) and Rachel notices an odd smell emanating from the place. 

When Ricky takes Rachel and Theo on a tour of Auckland’s many volcanoes, Ricky notices a mysterious man who seems to have fire coming from his fingertips.  He discovers that this strange man has been around since 1879 and discovers that his name is Mr. Jones (Sam Neill). 

Mr. Jones is an alien who is looking for twins to defeat monstrous creatures imprisoned beneath the volcanoes called Gargantuans.  The Wilberforces are also alien beings that are hell-bent on reawakening the Gargantuans and taking over the Earth.  So now Rachel and Theo have to embrace their twin-ness before it’s too late to save the planet.  

Maurice Gee’s novel may be a phenomenon in New Zealand, but I’d not heard of it and I consulted JuneL, a fan of young adult books, and she’d not a clue about it either.  I did see that it had been adapted before for television.  I couldn’t help but see shades of Escape from Witch Mountain (from the 1968 Alexander Key novel, 1975 Disney movie, and 1995 Disney re-imagining) in that we had teenage twins on a mission encountering potential world shattering troubles. 

The twins from Escape had more of a human variety, but our redheaded heroes encounter aliens from below.  In that battle, they’re assisted by one of New Zealand’s favorite sons, actor Sam Neill, as it would appear that Gee is one of New Zealand’s most lauded authors (sorry, I hadn’t heard of him before seeing this movie). 

Director Jonathan King, whose first feature was horror comedy Black Sheep [note to self: sounds fun, must move up in viewing queue], tries to take a more sweeping approach to Gee’s work.  To some degree, I’ll give him thumbs up.  The scenery of Auckland is truly sweeping and some travelogue footage will certainly make you want to visit. 

However, ominous music swells every time we see a volcano so we know something dastardly is afoot.  There also seems to be a bit of a rush (that might be because I knew the previous effort was a miniseries though) but things get moving fairly soon on.  It does have that Witch Mountain feel, but it also has enough New Zealand flavor to differentiate it.  Sam Neill is solid as usual and our young stars also do well.    

Under the Mountain is presented in widescreen (1.78:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions.  Special features include a commentary by director Jonathan King and writer Matthew Grainger, a 46 minute making of, and previews of other Lionsgate products.  

Under the Mountain features some lovely countryside (or is that volcano-side?) and solid performances.  Maurice Gee’s novel may be better known in his homeland but it does feature some excitement that the filmmakers do a solid job of putting on the screen.

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