Mission Nothing
Pilot Chip Corbett (Dennis Weaver - Ten Wanted Men) is a man who when his time comes plans to die rich, but his endeavours to make money lead him to Corregidor when he crash lands there in the midst of the Japanese invasion. After getting his wounds seen to by mission nurse Joan Barnes (Vera Miles - The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) he finds himself assisting the locals in stopping the Japanese from getting their hands on the governments gold. With attempts to get the gold on a US submarine fail they plan to sink the gold in the ocean with Chip to bomb the barge to sink it. The only trouble is that his plane is wrecked and so along with Joan and Colonel Turner (Keith Larsen) must journey through the dangerous jungle in search of another.
Have you ever watched a movie which was so un-involving that shortly after it starts your mind starts to drift and you begin to think about all the other things you could be doing? That is unfortunately what happened to me when I stumbled across "Mission Batangas" a movie which I can describe by saying it is a nothing movie.
Now in fairness part of my rouble with "Mission Batangas" is not of its own doing as it is a product of the late 60s and has that image quality to match where everything looks slightly fuzzy. But at the same time it is more than that as the camera work is stand offish and this just adds to that lack of image clarity. Maybe for those who grew up on this fuzzy image quality it will hold some nostalgic charm but it made it hard work right from the start.
Also hard work was the storyline as it seems to go around in circles till eventually we have are group heading through the jungle where we have the familiar set up of heel turned hero as Chip stops being purely concerned about himself. It also means that whilst we are given the conflict between Chip and Joan it ends up a movie of disjointed action and not exciting action at that due to the static camera work.
And unfortunately the nothingness continues as whilst "Mission Batangas" stars Dennis Weaver and Vera Miles both end up playing dull characters with very little chemistry between the two stars to make it interesting.
What this all boils down to is that "Mission Batangas" didn't do it for me and ended up one of those nothing movies which you spend the entire time thinking about other things which need to be done whilst also wondering why they don't make actresses like Vera Miles anymore.
