Bimini Code (1984)

Plot: Two young women who are partial to bikinis are drawn into a strange adventure in which the stakes are (dare I say it?) civilization itself.

Blonde Stacy and brunette Cheryl are two stalwart young women who ride motorcycles and are owners of a scuba shop. Altruistic Stacy wants the two of them to search for a young boy kidnapped off nearby Cable Island. Cheryl resists but the promise of a reward helps to change her mind. Their main clue is a label from a peanut can (!) the kid was playing with on the beach. Stacy borrows a cabin cruiser and goes with second bananas Rick and Fuji, who both sport really bad ’70s hair, to check out the spot where the kid was last seen. Cheryl, meanwhile, jumps on her motorcycle and goes to check out Scorpio Trading, the distributors of said nuts.

Despite the posted big red sign that says, “Danger Keep Away,” she noises around. (The ‘suspense’ music here is pretty amusingly bad.) By walking in the back door while camouflaged in a bright red mini-dress, she manages to overhear obvious Evil Henchmen types talking about “the kid.” She also gleans info about a secret undersea base that makes her fear for Stacy’s safety. She leaves, but is seen on a security camera.

Stacy and Rick scuba dive down to investigate the area. They soon find the above mentioned underwater installation.

Meanwhile, Cheryl makes it back to the shop and tries to radio the boat. However, she is grabbed by a goon wearing your classic black clothes, gloves and fedora. At about the same time, Stacy herself is nabbed.

Cheryl ends up in a storage/junk room, apparently in the surprisingly modest home of super-villainess Madame X (!!). Said mastermind is an attractive if stern looking blonde dressed all in black and sporting, that’s right, an eye patch. Just to make sure we don’t miss the Blofeld-ian nature of the character, she’s been provided with a wee lap dog. (I guess a white cat would have been too ‘much.’)

Stacy, meanwhile, ends up in the underwater base along with the missing boy. If this sounds a tad incoherent, it’s because we keep flipping between our two heroines, and I want to try to capture what actually watching the film is like.

Madame X, we learn, runs drugs — hidden in the MacGuffin peanut cans – as a business. Her hobby, though, is her maniacal search for the legendary Power Stone (!). Told of this as a child by her grandfather, the Power Stone is “the secret of the ancient Mayans…the secret of nuclear fusion!” Well, that’s one on me.

Meanwhile, Stacy takes out her guards with some rather poorly choreographed kung-fuing. Hilariously, she then leaves the kid down there (!), although she promises to come back. Frankly, I’d have at least tied up my former captors (actually, I’d probably have slit their throats), but to each his own.

She makes it past a tiny stock footage shark but is then immediately recaptured by evil scuba guys. Boy, yeah, that was exciting, all right. She’s taken back, and Madame X orders the base destroyed with Stacy and the boy in it. Our Villain also plans to burn down her house, with Cheryl in it, no doubt, so as to deny Interpol any fingerprints. Or something. First, though, Cheryl is to fall prey to Madame X’s pet tarantula.

Cheryl escapes before this can occur, though. Luckily, they didn’t really tighten the handcuffs she was wearing, so she was able to slip them off. (!!) Houdini she ain’t. And those nearby bolt cutters came in pretty easy, too. These must be the most accommodating miscreants since those fellows who locked the A-Team up in a storage locker containing a railway handcart, steel plating and an acetylene torch.

In any case, Cheryl rappels down from a window and a motorcycle chase is soon on. Apparently Madame X keeps a ready team of cycle commandos in the garage of her house, or office building, or whatever it is. The chase ends with Cheryl falling from a cliff into the ocean and rather conveniently being left for dead.

I should note that the actress playing Cheryl obviously does a lot of her own riding here, making me wonder if the film were written around its stars rather than being scripted and then cast. Also, to be fair, while nothing showcased here is overly tremendous, I have seen worse action sequences.

Meanwhile, the undersea ne’er-do-wells arm some limpet mines, ones apparently manufactured by Tupperware, and then swim off. Luckily, Rick manages to pinpoint the underwater base’s position from a search plane (??) and parachutes down in full scuba gear. He radios to Fuji that “there’s a whole city down here,” which seems rather an overstatement.

He then asks for luck as he attempts “the old switcheroo” with the explosive device. Fortune is with him, though, and he manages to defuse the device by turning the big knob on it from ‘ARM’ to ‘SAFE.’ Whew, that was a close one. Next he heads over to a stock footage yacht, one that he somehow knows contains the villains (??) and attaches the mine to it, turning the knob back to ARM.

At this point, however, he’s seen by some frogmen and takes a spear in the leg. However, the frogmen fear the bomb and take off without finishing him. Then…boy, I hope I’m not accidentally making any of this sound exciting. Anyway, all the good guys make it out OK, and the bad guys’ boat get blowed up real good.

Stacey finds a reference to the shipwreck Madame X is looking for, the resting place, supposedly, of the Power Stone. This indicates that the ship went down in Aruba, which is not at all where Madame X is looking. Per the established dynamic, Stacey wants to go down there and find it.

Per the same, Cheryl isn’t actually thrilled with the idea. Part of her reluctance is that the plan entails hooking up with the roguish Dusty, an old beau who lives in Aruba. (How convenient.) We then get an elaborate sequence depicting the two getting their scuba gear ready for shipment, making me suspect that one of the money guys behind this flick owned a scuba shop.

They quickly arrive at their destination, but a team of bad guys is following them. Why? I have no idea. Also, didn’t the police want to talk to them after they returned the kid? This seems like the kind of thing that would have kept them occupied for a while, given the drugs and kidnapping and exploded yacht and underwater base and all.

As they head off to Zombie Reef in Dusty’s boat, we see a pursuit helicopter and another boat, this one containing, gasp, Madame X herself. Again, why she would have figured that our heroines knew anything about the location of the Power Stone is left to our imaginations. Apparently the need to move the plot forward outweighed such logical quandaries.

The girls and Dusty soon find the wreck (very soon, in fact), and hearing the news, Madame X sends her forces in. Shortly thereafter our heroines are battling for their very lives, and we’re battling to care. Hiding, the twosome manage to stumble across a strong box in the hold of the wreck. Grabbing it, they swim back to Dusty’s boat. How to escape, though? “I just happened to remember an old sea chest that I’ve been saving for an occasion just like this,” the craft Dusty explains.

Sure enough, Madame X’s guys soon find said trunk on the sea bottom, having tracked it with a scope that reports that it’s full of ‘heavy metal.’ (I’m too tired; insert your own joke there.) Exactly what kind of scope this is is left to our imaginations. Anyway, thinking the Power Stone’s been found, Madame tells her men to ignore our protagonists. Imagine her chagrin when she learns that said sea chest contains, as we’ve been told, Dusty’s old diving weights.

By the way, “I just happened to remember an old sea chest that I’ve been saving for an occasion just like this.” Huh? What kind of an ‘occasion’ was that, anyway? One where you’re being pursued by killers who’d be thrown off the track by a trunk full of diving weights? I don’t know, that seems an oddly specific occasion.

Inside the real box, the girls find a journal. It contains a map to the Yucatan, showing the next purported location of the Power Stone. Gee, thank goodness. For a minute there I thought we’d be spared the final forty minutes of this turkey. Guess not, though. Lucky us. Soon they’re at the “ancient Mayan city of the gods.”

Now that they’re on land, our heroines have changed from bikinis to T-shirts and short shorts. Here we’re treated to some time wasting exposition about the general area, as well as a reiteration of the Mayan curse placed on anyone who finds the Power Stone. Their map, unsurprisingly, indicates that the object is to be found underwater, necessitating more exciting scuba footage. Well, back to the bikinis, I guess.

Again, ten seconds in the water and Dusty has found a wreck. He flees, though, as some of Madame X’s divers appear. Where the heck they came from is, that’s right, left to our imaginations. What’s the point of finding the secret map if the villains appear there at the same time you do? Our protagonists have one advantage, though. See, the journal indicated that the Power Stone was in a cave, not a wreck. It’s like in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Remember the Nazi guy who had the engraved staff head burned into his hand? But he lacked the info on the other side and ended up searching for the Ark in the wrong place? I’m sure the similarity, such as it is, is just a coincidence, though. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m suggesting they ripped off another film when they made this highly original tale.

X’s guys locate a ceramic jug apparently containing the Power Stone, but removing it results in a badly edited and quite jumbled volcanic disturbance of some kind. The bad guy diver falls prey to it and the jug ends up in the hands of our heroines. Up in their boat, however, they find that jar only contains a Spanish seal, not the Power Stone. (Oh, for crying out loud!!) Yep, the chase continues.

A little research in the local Maritime Library reveals the next supposed location of the Power Stone. They find info on the wreck — third in a series, collect them all! — of a Spanish galleon, which was carrying loot back to the Continent. This we (sorta) see portrayed though the miracle of stock footage, apparently clipped from an old pirate movie.

Meanwhile, the sinking of the ship is taken by the girls to be further evidence of the Mayan curse. As to why they’re so hot on chasing after the Power Stone if they’re so worried about the Curse, well, you got me. If I were them I’d let X find it and have the curse take care of her.

So they head out to Shark Rock, so named because…oh, you figured that one out. Madame X’s forces, of course, are right behind them. (How are they getting their intelligence?) Needless to say, we’re soon witness to our heroes and the bad guys engaged in further scuba activities, cut in with copious stock footage shots of sharks. Since her henchman fail to spot a wreck after about a minute of diving, X decides to leave, considering this locale to be a wild goose chase. As for our heroines, she’ll let the sharks take care of them.

Seconds later, unsurprisingly, the good guys find the yet latest wreck. (No wonder X has been searching for the Power Stone all her life. She’s a moron.) This allows Dusty to break out a big underwater vacuum cleaner deal so as to sift through the silt. Again, I have the distinct feeling that someone designed this movie to showcase as much underwater gear as possible. Anyway, they find what might be “pieces” of the Power Stone and bring them up with them.

At this point, and with some trepidation, I noted that there was still about twenty-five minutes of running time left. Therefore, I was hardly shocked, albeit rather annoyed, when the pieces turned out to be clues to the next possible location of the Stone. Who the heck wrote this boring crap, anyway? Good gravy, just get on with it, would you? Anyway, off they go to the Island of the Dead. (Hey, I didn’t write this picture). At least they’re to check out an old fort there, so no more scuba diving for a while.

Instead, we get another batch of stock footage of foreign climes. Oh, joy. Eventually our protagonists arrive at the fort. They search for about twenty seconds and give up. But then their guide tells them a tale, a tale of pirates who once raided the fort…

Somebody. Somewhere. Find the people who made this movie and kill them.

Inevitably, the pirate ship sank, so I think you can see where we’re going with this. On to Seal Island. (Actually, wouldn’t ‘Bulls*%#’ Island be more appropriate at his point?) And then, yep, back in the water, looking for the film’s forty-seventh wrecked ship.

After the inevitable extraordinarily quick search, they find a marker in the sand. It’s a knife. “Waffen SS,” Dusty explains, “pre-war issue.” Huh? Yeah, whatever. So, apparently, the Nazis beat them to the Power Stone. Boy, there’s a great Indiana Jones movie in there somewhere, isn’t there? Luckily, though, Stacey, who stayed on board during this particular dive, has put the pieces together. So she called her old pal Brad (“the one in the CIA?” – oh, brother) and got the *sigh* next scoop. This ties with Madame X’s back story, though, so maybe the movie will end someday after all.

Anyway, the lead Nazi on the Power Stone expedition was a scientist named von Cress – who was, needless to say, X’s great-uncle. (See, it’s all coming together.) Brad further revealed certain unusual facts regarding how the “ancient Mayans had hit on the secret of Nuclear Fusion. Supposedly, they’d engraved the whole thing in code on the Power Stone.”

You know, it’s to hear that kind of retarded stuff that makes sitting through these things worthwhile. Now, first, the secret of nuclear fusion isn’t really a secret anymore, so who cares anymore? Second, did Brad know all this off the top of his head? I mean, he managed to pass it on to Stacey in the maybe ten minutes that Dusty and Cheryl were underwater.

In any case, the elder von Cress, along with the Power Stone, went down in a sub (Stock Footage Alert!) near…Bimini Island! At last! Our movie is almost over!! However, Madame X has also heard the news, somehow getting a recording (?) of Stacey and Brad’s phone call. Whatever. Look, if it gets the movie finished faster, it’s fine with me.

So…off to Bimini Island. “There one hitch,” Stacey explains, “The Air Force uses the wrecks for bombing practice.” Yeah, that’s a hitch, all right. Somehow, and don’t ask me how, this means that the Air Force will have utterly destroyed the sub in the next raid, scheduled for thirty-six hours from now. (So, they’ve waited forty years to bomb the wreck, and are now doing so in a day and a half? What an amazing coincidence.)

Madame X is then shown arriving at the scene. She appears to have a scientific fleet that would put Jacques Cousteau’s to shame. Such is the miracle of stock footage. Soon her mini-sub is heading down to the sunken sub. Roughly the same time, though (“Thirty minutes to D-Day!”), the girls appear on a rubber raft in the same area. They dive into the water and manage to beat the mini-sub to the wreck. Which leads one to wonder why, if you can reach the wreck with scuba gear, X’s guys are bothering with the mini-sub?

Oh, OK, there go her divers. The mini-sub was merely to find the wreck. Which the girls did literally five seconds after diving from their raft. Whatever. They find a convenient open hatch and enter the ship. However, the bad guys find the Power Stone first. Somehow, Madame X communicates to the girls over a radio handset up on her boat (??), gloating at their presumed fate. (By the way, if the Air Force is scheduled to bomb this area in “six minutes,” I don’t know, but wouldn’t somebody be patrolling it?)

The girls manage to escape the sub. On the way back up they grab the Power Stone. This, fortuitously, was being hauled to the surface by the mini-sub, for no apparent reason except so that our heroines would have a chance to grab it.

Here things gets even more confusing. Which is saying something. Dusty’s boat shows up, apparently out of nowhere, and the girls are saved. (What was their plan if it didn’t include Dusty?) Then the Air Force plane comes by and mistakes X’s ship for their target. (???!!!!) Boom!

Anyway, the girls open up the latest strong box, Therein they find the Power Stone, which is a piece of rectangular slate wrapped in tin foil. “It’s all rusty and stuff,” Cheryl complains. (How would stone get rusty…oh, never mind.) Dusty hands over a convenient jar of water he has waiting (?), and tells her to dunk it in there. However, it starts bubbling when they do so. Before they can react to this strange event, though, Madame X appears behind them with a spear gun. (Whatever.)

X is thrown off by learning that the Stone dissolved in water. So am I, as this might be the stupidest deus ex machina I’ve ever seen. Dusty sneaks up and divests her of the spear gun, but gets knocked out for his trouble. Cat Fight time! After about two exciting seconds of this, our villainess ends up in the drink. Then along comes a stock footage Coast Guard chopper to tell them they’re in restricted waters. (Yeah, after the bombing run. That’s handy.) That’s pretty much it.

And another thing:

The video edition I own starts with an extended series of previews. These herald a slate of dubious looking flicks released under the umbrella of the rather obscure, not to mention generic sounding, American National Enterprises. We start off with a display of crude poster mock-ups for films like Did You Hear?, Spittin’ Image, The Rogue , Skateboard Madness, Hooch and, sadly, many more.

Chances are at least some of these weren’t made. It’s hard to say, though. Bimini Code exists. I know because I own a copy. Yet it isn’t listed anywhere on the Internet Movie Database. So here’s the assumption I’m working under: The films represented with posters probably never came into being. The films represented with actual previews, including our current subject, did. Barely.

Amongst the previews is Ironmaster, a boring Italian pre-historical sword & sorcery flick, sans the sorcery. It stars Miles O’Keefe, and is therefore sometimes mistakenly taken for an Ator flick. Next is Beasts, about an innocent couple hiking in the mountains who are besieged by a couple of psychos and a killer bear. In case you’re wondering, we’re meant to ask, “Who are the real beasts?” Whoever made this film would be my answer.

Once Upon a Scoundrel is a depressing looking Mexican ‘comedy’ western starring, I’m sad to say, Zero Mostel. Ouch. Next is Goldenrod. If you ever wanted to watch a period film about rodeo broncobusters in the ’50s that starred Donald Pleasance (?!), this is the one for you. Johnny Firecloud (!) is about the travails of being a hated American Indian in the atomic age. See Bigoted Southerners lynch an Old Indian Man! See Stock Footage Atomic Explosions! See Hassled Army Vet Johnny Go Homicidally Bee-zerk.

That’s right, it’s a sleazy knock-off of Billy Jack. Extra points go to this one for featuring Sacheen Littlefeather, the chick Brando sent to turn down his Best Actor Oscar for The Godfather. Lost is an adorable (well, you know) family flick about two kids lost on a mountain. Oh, oh! Jack Elam Alert! Last up is the promo for Bimini Code.

Bullet Time:

Summation: Not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but as repetitive as all get out. Still, if you’ve got a thing for bikinis and motorcycles and scuba diving, this is your flick.