Virus

Decent sci-fi horror/thriller. OK, it's not exceptional in any way but it's also not the steaming pile of poo that its rating here would suggest. I was expecting it to be a real stinker judging by some of the reviews I've read. On the contrary, it was a perfectly watchable movie of its type. Entertaining to a small degree but never dull. The cast isn't bad. Jamie Lee Curtis is the best of the lot. Donald Sutherland hams it up some with a silly Lucky Charms accent. I ask you though -- in what way is that not fun? Maybe people hate it because it has a "dumb action movie" quality about it. Sci-fi fans can be a prickly sort sometimes.

A mediocre storyline (i.e. Titanic) can become a world class film with character development, believable dialogue, and, for lack of a better word, some Hollywood magic. This film could have been a blockbuster with less action, less noise, less effects and more humans being human. Look at 2001 A Space Odyssey, Jaws, Titanic and countless other films, and you'll see that the story was about as interesting as Virus, and the actors, equally talented. Virus failed to deliver characters that we could believe and identify with.

I still recommend this film highly, as its interesting, it contains Jamie Lee Curtis (a hottie) and Donald Sutherland (a 20th century legend), lots of effects and action. In a way its sort of fun to watch quality actors attempt to make the best of horrible dialogue.

A 7 out of 10 for storyline and casting

Virus is based on a Dark Horse comic book. It has a lot of behind the scenes talent such as Gale Anne Hurd (Terminator/Aliens.) Director John Bruno is an Oscar winner for visual effects for The Abyss and he also did the VFX for Terminator 2 and Titanic.

It is no surprise then that the film rips off many of these films in the genre especially as it becomes Aliens meets Robocop meets Terminator.

An electrical based alien life form views humans as a virus, only useful for spare parts and slowly converts the humans into cyborgs.

The film starts off in a Russian space station before settling in a Russian ship. Our heroine is Jamie Lee Curtis a navigator in a tugboat with uninsured cargo destroyed in a typhoon.

The salty captain of the ship, is mean, a drunkard and on the verge of catastrophic failure. He is played by Donald Sutherland.

They stumble on the now abandoned Russian ship and want to take it as valuable salvage before they realise something else is also aboard.

Lee Curtis shows a lot of spirit, she is assisted by a bland William Baldwin. Sutherland is the hissable villain, a mixture of Captain Hook and Quint from Jaws.

The special effects are very good but the script is a let down and the film is rather dull.

"The Terminator" meets "The Predator" and "Alien", and what we get is this routine but moderately effective horror thriller, which isn't quite as bad as its reputation might lead you to believe. Sure, it lacks substance and (except for a few details)originality, but the energetic direction, the fast pacing and some impressively filmed explosions keep it painless. Effects aren't particularly outstanding, though.

This is a terribly great film, everything that is wrong with this flick just couldn't stop me from laughing, got to love 90s sci fi sorta b movie level, though we do have quite the cast everything just feels very off with the film, yet if you want to enjoy something for a laugh this would be the film, the effects are poor, the acting is very wooden, and the plot is well been done many times before. I first court this film on late night tv in the uk back when channel 5 used to do there late night films that were always guaranteed to be a terrible movie and had the wonderful pleasure to rewatch the film found on YouTube, this is a little bit of a guilty pleasure. Enjoy!