Atomica ( Deep Burial)

While its premise and some of its effects may be B-movie grade, "Atomica" - like the best B movies - delivers an unexpectedly rewarding kick.

Cheap-TV genre fare that might have passed muster as an average episode of "The Outer Limits," but over feature length simply feels slipshod and dull.

The original title for the second theatrical release from cable channel Syfy was Deep Burial, and that would have been an appropriate fate for this low-budget, sci-fi thriller.

Atomica's slapdash script is a hasty aggregation of screenwriting and science fiction clichés, barely feature-length and possibly written over a single weekend.

[It's] undone less by a lack of ambition than an inability to make its core concept compelling enough.

The biggest mystery behind this so-called science fiction thriller is why anyone bothered making it at all.

Better that it needed to be.

The film doesn't come alive as a thriller, with big reveals limping into the light, and resolutions lacking significant punch.

low-budget and claustrophobic film, most of which takes place underground with a plot that develops only slowly