Chapter One – "Beneath the Ocean Floor"

Our story begins with the opening titles. The theme music is several vaguely familiar pieces stitched together in such a way that it lurches from excitement to pomp and ceremony to whimsy and back again.

Our grinning star – complete with bracketed nickname – reminds us that this will be a production from which few will escape with their clothes and no one will escape with their dignity.

Next we see the heroic token female, the sinister oriental baddie, the cute kid, the barmy professor, the two comedy elements, the evil sidekick and a bunch of guys on horseback.

A naval band plays naval music and lots of naked men are assessed by a board of admiring officers. We even see a goat. Then we get some clips of sporting action (watched by thousands of men in caps). Crash Corrigan – our hero – is brilliant. That’s all this opening tells us. He’s absolutely fantastic. He wins the football game single handed so decides to finish of the day with a manly grapple. The small boy is a huge Crash fan and is desperate to get in and watch the manly grappling. He is refused entry because he is only a small boy but not to be deterred, the small boy finds an alternative way in. Climbing some convenient ladders, he secretes himself in the rafters and enjoys the manly grappling below. But disaster strikes when the small boy loses his grip and looks set to fall to earth and crack himself open. Fear not – Crash Corrigan rushes up the wall bars and rescues the small boy.

"Hurray!" shout the naval officers as one. They really do.

Enter fearless female reporter Diana – she’s here for a demonstration of the barmy professor’s machine – a device for detecting earthquakes.

She’s heard of Crash Corrigan – everyone has apparently. Professor Norton’s machine is picking up transmissions. I know – it is supposed to detect earthquakes not pick up signals – and the plucky female suggests the professor has discovered the lost continent of Atlantis. Rather than refute her mockery, he explains that Atlantis sank over a period of years – ample time, he says, for them to have built a roof for themselves. Or just to have sailed elsewhere. But there isn’t any drama in one bunch of people living on an island above sea level travelling to another island above sea level wherein a bunch of people live.

Cue a scene transition effect and we’re slap bang in to the heart of the mythic land of Atlantis. It’s real – whodathunkit?

Some men on horseback, religious statues, a man in a silly hat, a political info dump. These men – the good guys because they're wearing white – are at the mercy of a tyrant called Unga Kahn but they won’t surrender.

They light torches in defiance but a huge metal thing is racing towards them. They run around for a bit, get some more horses, and roll a rock from one end of the courtyard to the other. A flying machine drops bombs on them. It doesn’t look big enough to have more than a couple of bombs inside it but that doesn’t stop it. We follow the machine back to its futuristic tower – home of evil tyrant Unga Kahn.

One of his lackeys – evil so dressed in black – salutes him with a strange two-armed gesture. The goodies’ salute is closer to that of the Nazis but we won’t hold it against them. Thus we have established, using only two gestures, that these are civilisations very different to our own.

Unga Kahn is planning to destroy the "upper world". He waves his finger so we know he’s serious about it. He strides over to a television screen and watches some traffic. His is indeed a palace of high technology. He tells his lackey to activate some contraption or other and the man – wearing what appears to be a cross between a corset and a graphic equaliser – goes over to the edge of a pit and fiddles with buttons. You see, Unga Kahn has a stupidly complicated system of getting things done. He wants "the disintegrator" activating. Instead of pressing a button on his chair like Davros would, he tells his lackey to press buttons on his corset. This then activates a robot down in the pit and the robot flips the switch to activate the disintegrator.

Ah yes – the robots – Volkites to give them their proper name. Dustbins on legs, barrels in miniskirts – they inspire terror in all but those who can actually see them.

The lackey smiles at a job well done and a building collapses in the upper world as a result of the disintegrator’s work. Our heroes stand around a wireless and bravely decide to go down in a submarine and try to sort everything out. Crash, in uniform now, sends the small boy away on a foolish errand while the plucky reporter invites herself along for the ride. She explains as much to her paper and is so excited that she plays the entire scene without pausing for them to say anything. The submarine is "rocket powered" which is apparently a really good thing.

We cut to the comedy element and his parrot. He is told to get the submarine ready for "a long trip". The comedy element speaks like he doesn’t know he isn’t a black man. He falls down the ladder when trying to get his parrot on board the submarine. Meanwhile, a miscellaneous man is having second thoughts about getting on board. Crash puts his arms around him and gives him some manly encouragement. Perhaps adding, off camera, that he’ll be free for a grapple later if the miscellaneous man is interested.

The professor takes the chance of a crafty grope as the plucky female reporter climbs down the ladder.

And off we go – to Atlantis.

The miscellaneous man is in charge of the levers and begins to take the submarine down into the sea. Everyone stands around in the perfectly level inside while the outside is clearly at a forty-five degree angle.

The miscellaneous man is sweating too much. I think he’s going to crack. "We’ll never make it!" he cries. I was right. He makes his second egg reference in as many minutes.

That’s it – he’s snapped. He locks himself in the level room and promises to take the sub to the bottom of the ocean. He’s laughing like a loon now. It’s the fastest nervous breakdown in cinematic history.

The plucky female suggests they might break through the solid metal bulkhead. Bless her.

He’s cackling now. But hold hard! A crate inside the lever room opens – the small boy has smuggled himself aboard. He switches on the oxygen and allows Crash to start cutting through the door with a blowtorch. The miscellaneous man is smart enough to realise what has happened and switch the oxygen off again. He spots the small boy and they begin to grapple. Crash hears his cries for help and this enables him to break the door open after all. They burst in to the room and he knocks out the miscellaneous man.

The professor’s earthquake machine is registering activity. The game is on.

Unga Kahn’s machines blow up thanks to the professor’s gadget and he realises that there is something afoot. His lackey turns on the magnetic ray using his corset and the sub is pulled into Unga Kahn’s domain.

They emerge in a lake – despite being 10,000 feet under water – and land is sighted. The two comedy elements and their parrot wake up.

The Imperial Guard are sent to capture the submarine crew. The Imperial Guard are all in black. Several hundred men on several hundred horses ride out of a small cave to meet the half dozen newcomers. We learn that the two comedy elements are called "Briney" and "Salty". What larks.

The several hundred men on several hundred horses make their way across the hilly terrain towards our heroes. We’re twenty five minutes in – I was expecting it to be over by now.

Professor Norton looks at a hill and decides this is definitely Atlantis. The several hundred men on several hundred horses have found Crash and his chums. Crash – not noticing that they’re wearing black – tries to make peace.

"After him" cries one man on horseback the exact moment he comes to a dead halt. His arms-out-don’t-move gesture ensures no one else can go after him either.

Crash is trapped – only a vine and a lucky landing on horseback can save him.

The Juggernaut – the huge metal truck seen earlier – is dispatched. Why he didn’t do that earlier is anyone’s guess. I suppose the several hundred men have a better union.

The Juggernaut comes to a halt. "What’s that?" asks the Professor. "Some kind of war tank" replies Crash. Despite this, no one thinks to hide from it. The Volkites emerge. The miscellaneous man shoots at a Volkite and punctures his face. He isn’t bothered. The miscellaneous man runs away and is promptly killed by a Volkite death ray. The Volkites have to turn sideways to shoot their ray guns. A minor design flaw methinks.

The heroes are hiding but the Volkite death rays have set fire to the rocks. Crash bravely offers to lead them off but Unga Kahn has other ideas. "A blast of the invisible ray gun will stop them" he declares. It makes the rock beneath Crash’s feet smoke like a student and he’s ripe for the picking. Unga Kahn orders that the disintegrator be used. A big flashing bulb pops and sparks to show how serious he is. The mountain begins to crumble from beneath Crash. As if that wasn’t enough, Unga Kahn orders that missiles be launched at Crash. Quite literally, it’s a case of over kill.

Finally, Unga Kahn gets what he wants – Crash falls from the battered mountain and is surely dead.