Hybrid

When the operator of security cameras of the Olaris Corporation Aaron Scates (Cory Monteith) watches one of his colleague trapped in a fire, he saves him but burns his eyes becoming blinded. Dr. Andrea Hewlitt (Justine Bateman), who is ahead of a secret research of eye transplant, decides to use Aaron as a human subject of her experiments, successfully transplanting the eyes of a wolf found wounded by the half French half American Indian Lydia (Tinsel Korey), restoring his vision. However, Aaron changes his behavior and abilities, as if he were dominated by the spirit of the wild wolf. Lydia helps Aaron to escape from the facility and go to the woods while the government troops chase him.

"Hybrid" is a weird little movie with a quite original story. Unfortunately and probably due to the restraint budget, something is missing to make "Hybrid" a good movie. The unknown Cory Monteith shows a great physical shape but the plot does not work well and in the end this film is a forgettable entertainment. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Olhos Selvagens" ("Wild Eyes")

When i saw the preview for this on TV i was thinking, "ok its gonna be a good werewolf movie" but it was not. it was not scary at all! acting was good, plot was horrible, the military bid was just plain stupid. I think the SCI-FI channel could of done better than this piece of crap. The movie made it sound like Arron was going to turn into a werewolf, instead he turned psycho and bit some doctor's throat out. If you have read some of my other reviews on other movies, there all positive, but this one is not simply because the story was terrible. One out of 10 max. Im sure you all were expecting some werewolf flick, but i bet you didn't expect this. Beyond Loch Nes was way better than this movie, heck, any movie thats on the sci-fi channel is better than this movie.

I liked it.

I think it's rather important to attempt to look out through the eyes of other species on the planet, many of which we slaughter, imprison and use in painful experiments.

If the movie is low budget, I think the importance of the message can be taken into consideration.

Running about with wolves looks pretty pleasant to those of us who work hunched over a desk much of the time. Running through the woods. Yeah.

Wolves are cool, and they help ecosystems in countless ways, such as reducing predators that overgraze plant species in which birds nest. Prey carcases increase insects which feed small mammals including beaver which affect the water systems that support frogs, the fish that sustain bears and so forth.

The lead was personable, the love interest attractive with her heart in the right place, and burning a braid of sweet grass with a medicine man is a fine thing. I liked the touches of light hearted humor.

The movie was also about violence. The wolves' violence was to defend themselves, family and offspring. Bison were killed for survival. The shooters' killings, by contrast seemed purposeless. They seemed out of touch with nature outside and within themselves. Another way of saying that corporate people need to get back to what's important and reconnect with the natural world.

I'd like to see the sci fi channel air more movies like this. Rather than feeling down and empty after watching nonsensical gore following a lot of hype which mainly serves to keep more of our eyes glazed on advertisers' shiny mirages no matter how good the special effects can be, we can go back to our lives feeling far better and even a bit optimistic. I think that's what entertainment is for.

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.

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.