Marabunta, l'invasion souterraine

A large number of killer fire ants have awaken and start to consume people and animals in a remote area of Alaska. So it's up to a small group of people to figure out how they can stop these dangerous predators before they reach a major town.

Yep, that pretty much sums up this dour TV feature. It's bad. Again, did I tell you that it was bad!? I recorded this thinking that it might be cheesy fun, but really, there's no fun to be had. Gee, I should have gone fishing instead. True, it's a nature vs. man story, which that genre flooded the 50's, but for recent times this one is utterly boring and hardly enjoyable. Even a bad film made back then on this topic, at least it was unintentionally humorous, though sadly it isn't the case with this one. The opening sequence proves it! Most of the time I was thinking how did that happen or you got to be kidding me. This is because there is SO many things that lacked consistency and how many coincidences can you get, plenty! These one- dimensional characters are plain senseless and seem to forget too often that there are killer ants around, after battling them just a second ago and they don't seem to know ants can climb! What are terrifying are the ants themselves, the CGI effects are awfully staged and rather shoddy. That really goes for the lame explosions and patchy flamethrower too. But these ants can supposedly strip the skin off a human body within 30 minutes, although with out an ounce of blood. There's really only one drop! Just how big are they supposed to be because the rubber ones used to stick on someone when they are being attack is about twice the size of the CGI designs! They even take the lazy option of by providing a lot of deja vu moments involving scenes of the ants being used over and over again.

The plot goes for some intellectual speeches that bore you to death with its scientific mumbo jumbo. No way is this predictable hokum entertaining with its galore of clichés and mind numbing dialogue. A lot of the things you hear just make you cringe in disbelief. Please stop the bad pun! The corny acting was rather standard for this type of production, but there are some recognisable faces. Like Eric Lutes and Mitch Pileggi from X-files fame. Julia Campbell was lovely too. Just expect the usual enthusiastic performances. The acting might have been better than expected but also the cinematography was rather breathtaking in bringing the Alaska's wilderness on the screen. The backdrop was elegant. Too bad the direction and pacing was shamelessly lethargic and handled in a flat manner and plenty of the sequences show it. The telegraphed score is terribly worked in, but not as bad as the use of the stunt doubles (, the white water raft sequence where they decide suddenly to wear hats for the occasion). But like everything does in these shamble TV features, all the things work out in the nick of time… yeah right!

"Marabunta" is nothing but sour grapes. At least a hinted sequel won't see daylight, well I hope so.

"…flush them back to South America…" You tell 'em!

A small town in Alaska is being threatened by a legion of killer ants, which by some particular reason go crazy every twelve year and just wants to kill everything and everyone in their path. The town is soon evacuated, but some slack people persist with staying put to battle it out with the ants.

This has got to be one of the stupidest film I have ever seen. Sure, it was made directly for TV, but that does not mean it can be as bad as "Legion of Fire: Killer Ants".

The characters we are supposed to care about are: a lame guy from LA, an irritating teacher, a tired sheriff and finally his son, who screams in horror almost the entire film. Perhaps he had realized what he had got himself into when he signed up for this movie. And the otherwise gifted actor Mitch Pileggi, who stars as the sheriff, really should try to find better projects to work on when he is not shooting X-files episodes.

The ants are just as unconvincing as the characters, if not even more. When the movie is over, you will be very tired of close-ups of poor computer made ants that climb over sticks and rocks.

The movie also contains a lot of incredibly stupid action scenes. For example: when the two heroes are trapped between two flocks of ants out in the wilderness, they don´t realize that all they have to do is take one step out in water next to them, and they would be safe. Perhaps they were too scared to remember that ants can´t swim. And one time the kid is trapped inside a school bus, and there are hundreds of ants on it. But when the heroes arrive a few seconds later, all the ants are gone. Why? Many scenes are unconsciously funny, like when the heroes escape from the ants on a motorcycle and she screams, "Hurry! Faster!", when they easily could have walked away from the little troublemakers. And when all the mess is finally over, you have not seen a single ant been trampled to death, which probably would have been the easiest way to finish the little creatures off. Just jump on them, for Christ´s sake!

I could go on and on, but I think I will stop here. "Legions of Fire: Killer Ants" is a horror movie you will be laughing out loud to, which indeed also can be nice sometimes.

* out of * * * * *

Well this movie was completely insane. Where to begin? I won't bore you with any details because its not worth me typing any of the names of characters and only there is an "famous entomologist from LA", a teacher, a kid and a cop who we will refer to as xfiles since he played Asst. Dep. Skinner on the show.

Well now, shall we begin with the Oscar worthy script complete with plot holes the size of the CGI ants the feast on the human flesh. Some magical force of nature has cause a popular salmon fishing hot spot in Alaska to have increased subterranean temperature. This causes the salmon to flee and a unusual increase in the number of earthquakes. Ants begin to invade. Killer ants. When asked the question later of where there ants came from: "Have any boats been in dock?/ Yes, actually last week./ Was it from South America?/ Yes, Actually." These ants are rare because they only travel on roads. Cleverly they wait until humans discover them and their giant nest to decide to go on on all out rampage on society.

When someone gets eaten by ants they are replaced by fully clothed skeletons with a wig on. Apparently ants lick the bones clean. It was delicious.

The solution xfiles comes up with is to blow up the pass with dynamite if they cant eradicate them by Saturday (arbitrarily). This is the 20th century, even if they blow up the pass we don't have to wait for a wagon to take an extra 2 months to go over the mountains. And the ants have been crawling around underground, so blowing up the pass, although seething with seemingly cunning genius would ultimately prove to be mentally retarded and the ants would be unaffected.. sort of like challenging millions of ants with a revolver while belaying down a cliff, but i guess he had to open the locked door of the trailer and the revolver ended up being a key part. Why's that trailer there in the middle of a huge valley again?

Wait until you see the flame thrower scene. Here they try to burn a nest of ants with a flame throw that needs to be manually pumped. Listen as the entomologist tells the teacher to "Pump Harder" and her respond "I'm Trying" Then as ants crawl up her pants and on her feet, he turns and unleashes a s fury of flame over her feet, successfully destroying all ants without rendering her pants or shoes slightly burned. They then hop in a canoe. Then randomly hit a stretch of white water and as it turns out amazingly and quite conveniently, that they are both expert white water canoers. Watch for the ideally placed logs.

The ants will later burrow underneath people, pulling them under reminding us of the movie "Tremors". They then go on all assault including what appears to be some sort of explosive device. Fortunetly the entomologist remembers that he studies this for a living and comes up with a plan. Dstrpy the queen.

The plan itself is both idiotic and asinine. See it to believe it but know it includes a dam, 3 bundles of dynamite, 1 shovel, 1 lighter, an earthquake,a helicopter, and ants. The only thing that could have made this movie better would have been the appearance of Chuck Norris and Steven Seagal to fight each other to be the king of the ants and lead them to prosperity in Los Angeles. If either are reading... My people will call your people. I smell sequel.

A swarm of ants from South America decide to over run Alaska.

Cheesy and silly from start to end. Poor animation on the ants, to begin with. Sometimes you see some actual footage of about three or four real ants: scary. Attacks are the most contrived sequences you'll ever witness. One dummy climbs into a giant ant hill. Another guy fires a pistol at the ant hill. Some other clod tries to attack them with a tractor. Still another dimwit fires a rifle at the swarm as they try to surround her. Nobody ever seems to think of running away; the ants move at about 1/1000th the speed of a human.

One guy is in a truck driving in circles while fire bombs go off on either side of the truck, no matter where he is at any given moment. But I love the "Let's blow up the dam" sequence best. There's no reasonable explanation for why this would help, or any assurance that it would work. They just decide to blow up the dam. A helicopter picks up a guy after an 2-second earthquake knocks him off his feet, and he rolls down a hill to land atop some dynamite he just lit. And on it goes.

Good for a laugh at how stupid it all is.

Let's face it, in a made-for-TV movie like LEGION OF FIRE: KILLER ANTS! (aka: MARABUNTA), it's all about the ants. The humans are either those who seek to stop the onslaught, or the hapless victims of the tiny horde.

First off, the CGI ants are so poorly realized -even by late 1990's standards- that it's difficult to watch them, let alone take them seriously. Weren't there some real ones crawling around somewhere? Even a few live ants scattered here and there throughout the movie would have been better than these pitiful cartoons!

The humans aren't much better. Poor Mitch Peleggi. How did he wind up in this wretched nonsense?

SOME UNINTENTIONAL HUMOR TO HELP DULL THE PAIN: #1- The couple that decides it would be a nifty idea to get pictures of each other standing on an anthill the size of Devil's Tower! #2- The cartoon ants carrying away cartoon body parts! #3- The sheriff, standing atop his car, fending off the CGI bugs with a fire extinguisher! #4- While one of the heroes drives his truck over rough terrain, the two in the back of the vehicle bounce around in ways that would easily cause massive head trauma and grievous bodily injury! Miraculously, they're unscathed!

This is the sort of omni-schlock that makes ordinary schlock bow its head as it passes by...