even the best comic actor is at the mercy of his or her material , as <NEG> this subpar submarine comedy </NEG> proves . down periscope stars kelsey " frasier " grammer as an inept navy captain who is given command of his own ship as part of a corrupt officer's ( james coburn ) plan to get him out of the navy . like any lame emsemble comedy , the officer assigns him to a group of misfits like the guy who wants to be kicked out , the fat guy who eats all the time , the beautiful woman who doesn't belong there ( lauren holly ) , the second-in-command who does everything by the book ( rob schneider ) , the crazy old guy who freaks everyone out ( harry dean stanton ) and so on . <NEG> then comes the transparent plotline </NEG> . first grammer has to fix up the delapidated korean war ship the navy has given him , and <NEG> that comes courtesy a sad sight gag montage </NEG> that includes a guy with a mop knocking schneider overboard . after the ship is fixed up come the early drills , where everyone seems completely inept , like the electrician who can't connect wires so instead lets the current run through himself every time grammer gets on the phone . finally , and this covers the final hour of the movie , grammer has to lead his men ( and holly ) to overcome the other ships in a wargames exercise . and he has to be a clever rebel to do it , <NEG> in scenes that stretch all levels of believability </NEG> . first they're singing " louie louie " like a bunch of drunk sailors to throw the radar of the other ship off , then thirty minutes later , they're making whale mating noises to throw the radar of the other ship off . the whole while , evil captain coburn is <NEG> overacting </NEG> underwater , cursing grammer ( as most people watching the movie probably are too ) . <NEG> it's all predictable without any original humor </NEG> to redeem it . the jokes are right out of " mchale's navy " and other cut-rate sitcoms of the past . there's one scene where schneider looks through the ship's pantry in disgust , holds one food can up and announces , " this expired in 1966 ! " i yelled back at the screen , " so did these jokes . " i watched this movie with the whole family and <NEG> everyone hated it </NEG> . my mom was <NEG> so bored </NEG> she brought out the coupon book midway through and , around the start of the second hour , <NEG> i started writing my will </NEG> . the blame can't really be placed on the stars , though . kelsey grammer is good in this , he just <NEG> doesn't have anything to work with </NEG> . his character is said to have gotten so drunk one night that he had " welcome aboard " tatooed on his penis . grammer probably did something even worse -- got really drunk and agreed to appear in a movie he knew nothing about . same for holley ( save the penis part ) , who is likeable in down periscope just because she's so gorgeous . as for schneider ( whose <NEG> character is downright annoying </NEG> ) , there was nowhere to go but up after surf ninjas , although <NEG> he's still in the depths of the comedy ocean </NEG> after jumping the " snl " ship . my theory is that down periscope is one of those movies that got the green light before the script was even written as a formula comedy ( " okay , it's police academy in the navy with frasier at the helm and the chick from dumb and dumber . " ) and after everyone was signed on <NEG> turned into a disaster </NEG> . judging from the video box , most other movie critics agree with me . the only quote the down periscope copy writers could dig up came from the prevue channel's jim ferguson . i guess even jeff craig from " 60 second preview " ( who said tank girl " kicks butt ! " without ever seeing it ) didn't like this .
