Gina has to feed the locusts in Lab C-12 at the Virginia Agricultural Institute. She's not concerned about going in the room with the locusts because, after all, they're just grasshoppers ...
Dr. Maddy Rierdon (whose robe is open and doesn't cover her underwear), an Undersecretary of Agriculture, answers the phone and finds out she has to investigate yet another crisis involving insects. This bothers Dan (who is wearing a towel). Eventually he wants to break up with Maddy because she spends too much time on work. Later, Maddy calls him while he at his job as a United Nations Agricultural liaison, giving a tour to a group of Africans. In one of the film's few really funny moments, the translator explains that Americans have relationship problems, which makes the Africans laugh.
Dr. Peter Axelrod (John Heard) has developed a hybrid locust from the Desert Locust and the Australian Plague Locust. It has a shorter gestational period and a longer life span than normal locusts, and it migrates faster ... and it's resistant to all known pesticides. Dr. Rierdon orders his lab shut down, and Dr. Axelrod is fired. All the locusts are destroyed. Well, almost. A couple get away down a drain, and another small group gets shipped, with a special warning label, to a California Air Force Base. At the base, there is an accident, and the locusts get out.
Dr. Rierdon is in California anyway to check on a West Nile Virus threat. The locusts from the base have multiplied into a giant swarm and attacked a couple of campers and some Spanish-speaking farm workers.
Meanwhile, in the East, Dr. Axelrod has still not found work (though a defense job is a possibility), but he goes to the gym so he can at least keep in shape. On the way there, he encounters the descendants of the second group of escaped locusts--and so do his daughter Sofia and all the kids on her school bus.
Wyatt, a meteorologist in Oklahoma, advises both Dr. Rierdon and Dr. Axelrod on the weather conditions that might determine where the swarms will go next. Unfortunately, at this point, Dr. Rierdon wants Dr. Axelrod to stay out of the investigation.
Pittsburgh is such a beautiful, modern city, which has overcome its image as a dirty and industrial. No longer is the city covered by dark clouds ... oh, wait.
Only one thing will kill these evil creatures. Saddam Hussein used it on his people. If nothing is done, world famine will result. Perhaps it is worth sacrificing some Americans to save the country's food supply.
The eventual solution to the locust problem is as unbelievable as the fact such a swarm could form in the first place.
If you enjoy movies like this (and I do) this was pretty good. I'm not saying this was a good movie. Almost nothing about it suggests quality except the visual effects. These swarms were scary (to me, anyway), even in the lab. And there were a few brief, well-done shots of what appeared to be real locusts eating. As for any attempts at scientific accuracy, I don't think anyone was really trying.
I found the characters in Stacey's office in Pittsburgh appealing enough that I would like to have seen a whole movie about them. Oh, well ...
Mike Farrell got old! I didn't even recognize him at first in the first scene where he appeared, talking with his daughter Maddy on the phone. He was really good in that scene, but later he wasn't anything special. Other good performances came from the translator and the farm workers.
If you like bad horror movies, this is a good one.
