Hybrid

With the sound off this could be mistaken for a movie about a guy using the Native American technique of running with animals to train for a marathon.

Man loses eyesight, gets wolf eye transplant, begins acting wolf-ish. Weak ass tropes and lots of repetitive wolves in the wild trances/flashbacks follow. We've got the super rare steak eating scene. Some running with puppers. Seeing and hearing better. Biting people... with normal human teeth mind you. But no transformations. Just becoming super best buddies with a pack of wolves and loads of shirtless running.

The romance is forced and weird. The dialog is abysmal, every line is utterly forgettable. The villain is the military in its usual roll, you know the one, wanting to use scientific advancements for war. With some Native American schlocky mysticisms sprinkled liberally throughout. The ending seemed to drag on forever.

Does not, I repeat, does not fall into the so bad it's good category (which sucks because I live for those movies). I don't think it could even be saved by RiffTrax because there are just too many scenes of wolves running, him running, and nothing really happening besides running.

So this little jem came at a .. what's next moment. Not the blockbuster but has a lot of love and some what if. This is right up there, for me, with powow highway and interstate 60. The conclusion is the heart of this gem.

Is it just me or could the movie be better with more of him running and shots of wolves growling? On the other hand that is all this movie is, with a few Native Americans thrown in for atmosphere. The kills are boring and plot is weak for such a unique idea. Mallory from Family ties cannot save this move, but did make the beginning more interesting with the "hey isn't that?" "Oh she was the sister in..." The lead guy is fit, but shirtless cannot make a movie and it seems like the director was like, um it not long enough, can we add about 40 shots of him shirtless. While it's better than if he was 400 lbs. It quickly becomes gratuitous and irritating, because they are shots that lead nowhere. I'm still bitter about the loss of those 90 minutes. While you may see this on scyfy and think, why not? Don't. Its a bore and a half. Watch a few reruns of something instead.

The plot sounds vaguely interesting ... a scientist (Bateman) discovers how to transplant animal eyes and optic nerves into other animals, like humans. A young man (Monteith) is blinded saving a coworker at work - the scientist gets a call from a doctor that the young man is a good candidate to be the first human recipient. The recipient starts becoming more and wolf-like, but the effect is nothing more than "weird eyes" and running at night with dogs! (for the whole movie) The budget is too low, the dialogue too stilted (I laughed out loud at some of the ridiculous talk), and the acting too inept. Long portions of the movie are nothing more than dreamy looks, eerie music and interspersed clips of wolves in the wild. Way too long even at 90 minutes, boring, and devoid of ideas.

The military want to use the eye transplants to give wounded soldiers back their eyesight, and presumably want to militarize the technology. There's a silly subplot about a beautiful Indian girl (Korey) who thinks she can help, using Indian wisdom about the wolves. They make love while music heavy on drums and Indian chanting is heard - crazy, man! The love making takes place immediately after a gruesome murder - who edited this turkey?! A grouchy "medicine man" who spouts platitudes seems to do little, except for adding atmosphere.

Here's two ridiculous scenes. A worker at the research lab goes into the animal room to discover the monkeys have been let out of their cages. She gets scared, looks left at the monkeys, turns right, turns left, turns right, turns left .. this goes on for a while (who edited this??). RUN OUT OF THE DAMN LAB! It was so stupid I started laughing. Another ridiculous scene - our hero is at home, escapes out a window as the heavily armed military arrive - he leaves the window open, the military guys go to the open window, look out the window, they say "looks like he was here", and LEAVE! He went out the open window, guys!! Crazy.

Near the end of the movie, military guys are firing machine guns over and over at trees, when obviously nothing is there - easier to place the squibs I guess. They have 6 machine guns which have cut down trees, but decide to fight our hero with 1 knife!!! Shoot the guy!! Who wrote this trash?? There's a pointless confrontation at the end, and believe me I'm not spoiling anything for you - there's not enough plot to spoil.

I figure the whole thing was a tax write-off or a rush job to make use of unused budget money left over from some better movie.

The plot sounded like it had promise. To be honest I did not watch the entire movie. After about an hour into the movie I had to make a decision. Is this movie worth watching until it conclusion? The answer was clearly NO! It was not the fact that the human body could not receive a transplant from a different species without rejecting it. Nor the premise that he was being chased by secret government authorities for an human / wolf transplant. It was because the movie was badly written, acting lacked emotion and I did not understand the several dream sequences with the wolves and buffaloes. When he was running to the zoo with a dog pack and leaving them at the front of the zoo gate the saying "If you can't run with the big dogs don't leave the porch" kept running through my bored mind. Save yourself the time and skip this movie. I can guarantee if you do dare to watch it you will sit there slack jawed as I did wondering why anyone waste money, time, energy and effort to make this insulting outrage to American cinema.