Thursday 11 February 2010

Infestated

The latest direct-to-the-recycle-bin movie features large bugs. This movie takes a brave step of having the hero be unlikable, and implausible that he is able to step up to the bat to do anything at all to survive the post-apocalyptic bug world.

About five minutes into the movie the bugs strike and all of a sudden we switch to a world where slacker-boy is a hero, and he gains a group of people, each more incompetent than the last. Aside from the female lead, which is the only person worth rooting for in this movie. Why couldn't she have been the main lead? A far more interesting character than anyone else. Anyway, it's up to this ragtag group of heroes to defeat the bugs and revive the world. 'Cos that's a believable story.

Fine, some group of people were likely to accidentally stumble across the answer and deal with the bugs, but the people we are presented with are more likely to severely injure themselves in a garden implement accident than survive even one bug let alone a swarm. Sigh.

One measure of a movie is the names attached to it (although not always: who would have thought how big Evil Dead would have been way back when they were all unknowns?), and there are some really big names that... are nowhere to be seen. We do get Linda "Enterprise" Park, but the big draw would have to be Ray "Twin Peaks"/"Reaper" Wise. Now there's an entertaining man to watch! Now the two leads Chris Marquette and Brooke Nevin have substantial IMDB entries, but I'm not seeing anything that prompts memories of them. Yeah, big names...

But this movie is supposed to be about the bugs, and there are a lot of them. There are some compositing issues, but they are bugs and bugs have been done well before, so they mostly work.

Not a breakout hit, or even a rare treat. If you miss it, you aren't missing anything.

[END]

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