Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

sddavis63 This movie is set in "the future" - at least the future as it was envisaged in 1935, when it was made. It's actually never really established when this is set, but all things considered it had some pretty impressive predictions of futuristic devices (as well as, inevitably, a few misses.) So ,for example, there's reference to a tunnel having been built under the English Channel between Britain and France (which we today call the "chunnel") in 1940. That's several decades too early, but it gives us a reference point; the movie is set later than that (probably significantly later than that.) There's also apparently fairly widespread use of television, and even video-messaging "Skype-like" devices. Mind you, the movie misses the Second World War as far as we know. Helicopter-type airplanes never did become the rage, and there also seems to be an assumption of the survival of the "British Empire" - as late in the movie the King of England is referred to as the "Ruler of the British Empire" - a phrase that would have disappeared from the lingo not too long after this movie was made really. Still, it's a pretty impressive bit of future-gazing.The story revolves around an engineer who has invented a new kind of steel that's strong enough to allow for the building of a tunnel under the Atlantic Ocean between England and the United States. The scenes set inside the tunnel while it's being built are starkly impressive - looking like one would expect such a massive works project to look like. The work is dangerous, which is well portrayed, and a lot of men lose their lives working on the project. That, in a way, becomes the real subplot of the movie.A lot of lives are lost in the tunnel, but lives are also lost because of the tunnel. McAllan (Richard Dix) for example - the engineer in charge of the project - sacrifices literally everything (up to and including his own family) for the sake of this project. The project takes over his life. He eats, drinks and sleeps the tunnel. There's nothing else that even remotely competes with the tunnel in his life. That leads to all kinds of personal melodrama mixed in with the technical scenes about the building of the tunnel.Maybe I'm looking at this too much with almost 80 years of distance, but as I watched this and the negative effects the tunnel was having on so many lives, I couldn't help but think of this as a classic white elephant public works project. It's almost 5500 kilometres from London to New York City as the crow flies. Who would use this tunnel? What possible practical use would there be for it? Yes, it creates some jobs - so the unions support it. It makes money - so the corporations support it. Because it does both - the governments support it. And for the sake of national pride - the people support it. But for what? Apparently there's an international threat brewing from a coalition of "Eastern nations." How will the tunnel help with that? I guess the Americans could ship arms and men to England through the tunnel (if the threat is from Eastern Europe) or Britain could do the same for America (if the threat is from Asia) but this still seemed to be a waste of time, energy and lives.But that's 80 years later. It didn't make for a bad movie, but I would have liked a clearer explanation of why the thing was being built in the first place. As it is, it was apparently being built - just because we can! (6/10)

MartinHafer THE TRANSATLANTIC TUNNEL is a sci-fi film set in the near future. The story is about a joint American-British effort to build this tunnel. Additionally, the toll this takes on the men (in particular the chief engineer) and the behind the scenes machinations are explored.This is a really neat sci-fi movie in many ways. While the idea of a transatlantic tunnel is ridiculously far-fetched, the special effects for this British film are amazingly realistic and well executed. It's really too bad, then, that the soap opera built around it is poor. However, because the film is so astounding to look at, it's still well worth a look.The British film makers enlisted Richard Dix for the lead in this film. He was a big name for the time and he would presumably bring American audiences to see this film. Whether or not this worked, I have no idea, but although I like Dix in other films, here he isn't particularly distinguished. This would be more obvious had it not been that many of the British cast were pretty dreadful. And, because the dialog was so poor, it only made this seem worse.As I said, this is all pretty sad, as the special effects were great. Seeing giant television sets, videophones, cool futuristic cars and the tunnel itself were all absolutely amazing. In fact, it's one of the best sci-fi films of the time and this aspect of the film alone merit a 9 or 10--not bad for a relatively low budget film.Overall, it's a great curio that you can enjoy provided you can wade through the soapy story.

Bob-45 How do you make a story as potentially exciting as building a tunnel from England to the U.S. dull and uninvolving? If you want to know, watch the dull camera-work, plodding direction, trite script and melodramatic acting in "Transatlantic Tunnel." Too bad, because the special effects and art direction are first rate for the period. They are,in many ways, superior to those used in "Things to Come." I have difficulty faulting the acting style used in "Transatlantic Tunnel;" it's a carryover from silent films, and many movies of the period are equally overacted. However, the script is strictly "by-the-numbers," and the direction of actors is so slap-dash, it's impossible to care much about them.Little, if any, attempt is made to age the actors, in a story that spans at least 7 years. Only the child "grows up" to be a man, and his scenes are brief and unmoving.The film feels excruciating slow when it generates any emotional involvement at all.The film's message of "peace through joining the English-speaking peoples, is embarrassingly naive, even for the time. When the "English-speaking peoples" get together, it's generally for anything but peace.I give "Transatlantic Tunnel" a "5," and that for the special effects and art direction. Entertainment value is pretty near zero.

Meredith P. (Etoile) The concept of the movie is very basic: the building of a tunnel connecting the eastern United States with the island of Great Britain. If this were actually possible, it would probably have been done long before now -- but this film is an excellent portrayal of the possibilities. It's quite entertaining for not only fans of old movies, but for history buffs as well -- and even students of transportation should enjoy it!