Mammoth

This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a great movie. I have long said SciFi Original is synonymous with "crap" when it comes to movies. They don't have a very good track record when it comes to movies, but I'm beginning to think that this one shows they know it.

The actors, mostly B-movie and TV types, with Summer Glau probably being the biggest name in it, aren't the worst actors SciFi has put in a movie. The writing actually has some quotable lines. The special effects are bad for modern era CGI, but we're talking about a low budget horror film. We've all seen them, and some of us actually enjoy them. So, if you like the corniness of so many horror films from the 50s and 60s, or maybe the camp of the Killer Tomatoes series or perhaps Tremors, you will actually enjoy this movie.

I read the first review here after the original airing on April 21st 2006 and was flabbergasted at the negative response.

Having just rewatched it and then returning here to reread that review and those posted since, I can't help but feel that some people just don't appreciate fine cheese at its smelliness.

This is a great movie! I highly recommend it. As much as "Men in Black" was a spoof of the whole "extraterrestial on earth" genre, this is so much more as a spoof of that movie and so many more.

If you were looking for a serious sci-fi movie... then, sure, you can go along with the less than raving reviews by those who somehow thought the previews promised more.

If you need some good, if young (and at times runny, but always smelly), cheese that doesn't require much thought and/or attention-span and that will put a smile on your face then I'd have to recommend you switch to SciFi if this is on... don't waste any media recording it... I'm sure they'll be showing it again (and again).

Cheesy Script + Tom Skerritt + Sense of Humor = MAMMOTH.

Anyone who took MAMMOTH seriously = severely confused.

In Louisiana, the clumsy director of the local museum, Dr. Frank Abernathy (Vincent Ventresca), removes a weird device from a frozen 17 ton mammoth, actually a GPS that brings a spacecraft with an alien entity to Earth that falls into the local museum and revives the mammoth that hosts the lifeforce. The animal attacks the security guard first and the population later. Special Agents Powers (Leila Arcieri) and Whitaker (Marcus Lyle Brown) seek out the paleontologist Dr. Frank to help them to destroy the mammoth; otherwise the government will blast the town. Dr. Frank concludes that the animal must be frozen and together with his father and fan of sci-fi movies, Simon Abernathy (Tom Skerritt) and his sixteen year-old daughter (Summer Glau), they plot a plan to capture the mammoth.

The forgettable "Mammoth" is an attempt of remaking those sci-fi movies from the 50's and 60's that unfortunately fails. There are references to many sci-fi classics, but the silly story does not work well alternating humor that is not funny and fiction. For example, the unnecessary death of Squirrelly is stupid and moralist and for the purpose of the plot, is absolutely useless. Simon Abernathy seems to be a lunatic in many moments and his son Franks is never funny, only clumsy. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Extinção em Fúria" ("Extinction in Fury")

Not a *good* movie exactly, but a significant improvement over most Sci-Fi Channel original movies. It had some humor, and the movie worked best when it was its silliest. The more serious scenes tended to just slow the movie down.

If you like Vincent Ventresca (Invisible Man), he does some decent work with a not too great script. There are some other good actors too, but they don't quite manage to rise above the script as much.

Unfortunately, the best that can be said about Mammoth is that it is an improvement for Sci-Fi Channel. Hopefully their original movies will continue to improve.

I saw the last half of this movie on SciFi and then a few hours later, I saw the beginning when they replayed it. If I had seen it from the beginning, I would have been a lot more disappointed, because the opening sequence was amazing, and sadly, the rest of the film didn't quite measure up. But the opening? Great CGI effects giving way to traditional animation (of cave drawings) that gave us a taste of the backstory, with fun, appropriately theramin-heavy music - it could have been the opening to a theatrical film, it was just that good! I can tell what the director/writers/producers were going for with the rest of the film, with the over-the-top plot, characters, and humorous lines and references to classic 50s sci- fi schlock. But it just didn't quite come off. And for the hour that I saw of it, they could have benefited from a whole lot more mammoth, since that IS the title. Oh well. I bet the creators do better next time.