Critters 4

Angela Bassett and Brad Dourif join Leo DiCaprio in the short list of Oscar-nominated actors to have played second fiddle to the Chiodo Brothers' crap Critter hand-puppets; in this fourth outing for the voracious extraterrestrial fur-balls, Bassett and Dourif play part of the crew of a deep space salvage craft who retrieve a cryogenic pod containing the last two surviving Krite eggs (and Charlie the bounty hunter, once again played by Don Opper). When the pod is opened, the eggs hatch and the aliens go on the rampage.

Krites causing chaos in outer space could have made for a lot of fun, but rather than continue with the camp, B-movie spirit established over the first three Critters films, this effort goes for a much more sober style—something akin to Ridley Scott's Alien (but on a much lower budget).

This approach results in countless scenes of characters wandering down dark corridors littered with ducts and vents from where the toothy creatures might launch an attack, but while this might work wonders when the monsters are truly the stuff of nightmares (like H.R. Giger's genuinely terrifying xenomorph from Alien), the effect isn't anywhere near as effective when the threat is from dumb looking hedgehogs with naff glowing eyes. In the end, Critters 4 is far from scary, never funny, and ultimately very tedious.

What I like about the movie is that the Critters are back in this supercharged sci-fi space adventure! But these are no ordinary Critters they've a super strain of genetically engineered mutants designed to take over the universe. This time they've hungry to conquer the galaxy, with an appetite for mankind that's out of this world. There are scenes where a malfunctioning computer traps a character in an elevator, characters are nearly jettisoned into space from a garbage disposal, malfunctioning doors force characters to climb through access panels, there's an attempted rape from a drunken ship captain, the lingering threat of a nuclear core meltdown… even the climax of the film fails to account for the Critters, as the big moment is a standoff between Charlie and Ug.

And can you believe how many "good" actors have appeared throughout the Critters franchise? Everything from popular voice actors (Scott Grimes) to scream queens (Dee Wallace) to niche personalities (Eddie Deezen) to Broadway superstars (Terrance Mann) to talented character actors (Brad Dourif) to motherfucking Leonardo DiCaprio. And that's not even getting to Billy Zane, M. Emmet Walsh or Angela Bassett, all of whom have offered celebrated performances in their time. And even the actors who didn't go on to become big names are all highly competent; there really isn't a performance in any of these movies that made me want to pull my hair out. Call it an act of providence, but the Critters series is more than solidly cast from beginning to end and that's.. that's just phenomenal, considering the material we're discussing.

Anyhow, Critters 4 had the resources to be a good Critters movie, but it didn't want to be a Critters movie, so it wound up just sort of amounting to nothing. There are good moments sprinkled about the film and I enjoyed the stuff with Charlie and Ug, but most of it is just boring and frustrating.

Overall rating: 4 out of 10.

Critters 4 was a complete disaster. It takes place immediately after the third one and this time they invade space about 50 years in the future. A space ship unknowingly brings the critters on board not knowing the danger of the little monsters. I'm not really sure of the plot, or why the space ship is roaming around space. I;m not even sure if Earth exists in this fourth Critters. Perhaps I wasn't paying attention, but I don't think much of what is going on is ever explained in the film. About 50 minutes in, we see three critters. For a Critters movie, that is a major disappointment. The other three films were actually funny and had some good "scares" and special effects. The scares in the Critters movies were never bone chilling, but they were fun scares. This fourth one skips all that and is about 90 minutes of nothing.

There are no comical moments in this at all. The Critters' personalities from the first three are all but gone. And they kind of make Ug a bad guy. If you watched the first two, you would know he would never try to hurt Charlie. They completely ruined that character which is also disappointing. The whole movie just didn't feel like a Critters sequel. That's the problem when they take horror films and put them in space.

Putting a horror franchise in space to create a sci-fi vibe almost never works, especially for a comedy horror series. You have to spend so much unnecessary time explaining about how the ship works, what the mission is, all sorts of technical and downright boring information. It's Critters for Pete's sake! Have the fur balls roll around a hotel for all I care, just don't put them in space. Well they did, and the movie wasn't very good.

Disappointing last entry to a pretty good series overall. The appearances of the Critters were far and few between and the story of part 4 was a complete mess.

3/10

Those pesky critters are now in space to munch on some new victims. I've said it once and I'll say it again. Anytime a franchsie moves the playing field to outer space, you know it is heading for trouble. While this wasn't the one to kill the series, part three was, it isn't any better then the other Alien clones on the market. Angela Bassett adds some heightened presence to it and it's moderately entertaining for what it is.

Rated PG-13; Violence and Profanity.

The "Critters" sequels are awful and didn't lead up to the fun of the first one, but this sequel lives up to it and is even better. It has a good story, nice visual effects, and a quick pace. The cast are very good in their parts as well, it was especially good seeing Angela Bassett before she became a big name. The ending is pretty pathetic, but it still is a lot of fun and is worth a rent.