Made over seven years ago, it isn’t hard to see why it took so long for Nico Sentner’s Atomic Eden (2015) to be released stateside. Made up of a mixture of low production values, laughable acting and a poorly written script, this is clearly no one's idea of a good time at the movies.
Perhaps Atomic Eden’s U.S. distributors were hoping that with everyone being starved of new action content during Covid that they would be willing to take whatever they could get their hands on. Saying that, there are some minor pleasures to be had in Atomic Eden but not enough that I could actually recommend it.
Like a bargain basement Expendables (2010), we follow the exploits of Stoker (Fred Williamson) who is gathering a group of mercenaries to locate a secret Nazi weapon which as been missing since World War II. This supposed doomsday machine has reportedly been located in the abandoned Ukraine town of Pripyat. This location is famous for another reason, being the location of the infamous Chernobyl disaster.
Stokers team is made up of a variety of specialists, from martial artists David and Reiko (Mike Moller and Hazuki Kato), Priest Heinrich (Wolfgang Riehm) to gunman Darwin (Everett Ray Aponte) with a few other less interesting characters thrown in to make up the numbers. As expected the mission doesn’t exactly go to plan with our heroes having to face off against an entire army of crazed gunmen who want Atomic Eden for themselves.
This marks director Nico Sentner’s first full length feature. Clearly he was working with extremely limited resources so I should cut him slack for some of the poorer elements of the film. The main issue the film has is its overall ugly digital look. Now almost all low budget films are shot digitally these days, however they usually look better than this.
I must say though, I did like the fact that Sentner didn’t go the usual DTV route of using digital gunfire and blood, with him opting for blood squibs. It would have been good if the gunfire sounded as if it had more impact, as it sounds like a bunch of children playing with cap guns in the playground.
Sentner also appears in front of the camera as one of the more generic members of the team. Spoiler alert……...he doesn’t last long. Perhaps Sentner also realised his limitations as an actor and chose to opt out early.
Sentner’s script also has a number of issues, with some terrible dialogue. It doesn’t help that some members of the cast struggle to convincingly deliver their lines, making the dialogue sound even worse than it may have originally. The worst offender is Hazuki Kato whose lines seem extremely stilted. At least she capably handles her brief action scenes well, getting the most memorable kills of the film.
At least Sentner has the legendary Fred Williamson to fall back on. No stranger to low budget productions, Williamson is always able to bring a degree of class to proceedings. Still, some of Sentner’s directorial touches and poor editing detract from Williamson’s performance, but luckily Williamson is able to overcome this.
Considering he was 77 at the time of production he still gets his fair share of the action. Mostly this is of the gunplay variety but he does get to throw the odd punch. At no point does Williamson come across as unconvincing, still being the believable bad ass that we love.
For a better example of recent Williamson badassery I would suggest the excellent V.F.W. (2019) where he is teamed with a lot more illustrious co-stars than he is here.
While Williamson brings the star power, the most valuable performer here is German martial artist Mike Moller. Small in stature but big on talent, Moller gives a suitably acrobatic performance running away with the best of the film's action scenes. The real issue is that he isn’t given more to do as whenever he is on screen the film comes alive.
Moller also carried out the action choreography and if nothing else Atomic Eden can work as a calling card for what he is capable off, especially when working with limited resources. All the martial arts scenes carried out are good fun, it is only when the action switches to gunplay it seems to suffer, with the low production values robbing them of any impact.
Moller had previously worked with Sentner on the equally low budget Urban Fighter (2012), which Sentner executive produced. With Moller carrying out acting and directing duties, Urban Fighter shares many of the same issues as Atomic Eden with extremely low production values and a poor script. However, it comes alive during its action scenes, again being a perfect showcase for Mollers skill.
For a more enjoyable Moller feature I would suggest Ultimate Justice (2017) which finds him acting alongside legendary martial artist Mark Dacascos as well as Matthias Hues, Mike Leeder and his Atomic Eden co-star Wolfgang Riehm. Whilst not perfect it's a lot of fun.
I really wish that I could give Atomic Eden a better review as I can understand how difficult it is to put together a low budget action movie. Still other filmmakers have been able to overcome such obstacles with greater results. I would suggest considerably lowering your expectations before making any type of attempt at watching Atomic Eden.
PLOT: 1/5
ACTING: 1.5/5
ACTION: 2.5/5
OVERALL: 1.6/5
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