Prehistoric Terror

Watched this tonight...it was a forced endeavor after the first few minutes. The Sci Fi Network has some real need of new creative staff, writers and directors. This was a poorly done venture of a pitiful film. While I enjoyed seeing Colm Meaney (Vincent) and Christopher Atkins (John Palmer) again, even their acting was rather bleak. The plot was interesting, but overdone - huge mutant beetles living underground for who knows how long. While the bugs themselves looked 'real', the editing was painful! There were really bad clips during the entire movie. Pay attention to a scene early in the movie when the group is going down the mine shaft – one guy nearly falls out – watch the 'skillful' editing when they get him back on the lift! Amateur film makers with Hi-8 Video Cameras could have probably done a better job. What was up with the actors who played the kids? Chelan Simmons (Emily Palmer) and Stevie Mitchell (Miles Palmer) were real screamers! I had to check the cast list to make sure that the actress who played Emily wasn't the daughter of Kate Capshaw! (Remember all the shrill, needless screaming she did in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). All Chelan/Emily did was scream nearly the entire movie. If the writers were more realistic, the character of Emily would have been more of a fighter and helped her mother, Samantha (played by Angela Featherstone). At one point, I hoped Samantha would just shoot Emily to shut her up. I love the Sci Fi Channel because I really love Science Fiction and Adventure films, but the bigwigs in that network need a reality check and clean house of those who are producing their network movies. Most Sci Fi Channel/Network 'Original' movies have been absolutely horrible. Why do I even try to watch their 'Original' movies? Because I do live this type of movie and want to give them a chance and...I must also be a glutton for punishment...I keep expecting that they will finally get with the right picture.

Sci Fi DOES have some great and very creative commercials - maybe they need to have the people making those promotional spots produce their network movies.

I was at Hollywood video one day, and they had this big sale going on, so I bought quit a bit of movies. I was looking and I came across this. I looked at it and though, it looked "okay", not good, but okay. I also didn't know it was a TV movie (or sci-fi channel movie either). So, I bought the movies, came home, and I think I watched this one first. I could not believe what I was watching.. .utter crap. This movie was so bad it was funny (and, slightly fun, but not enough to like the movie). I couldn't believe the CGI effects, it was laughable to the extreme. And like most cheap horror films, the gore was over-the-top, and so was the acting (which also is really amateur). This was definitely without a doubt one of the worst movies ever made, not even sure how it got made to begin with. I rate it 3/10 (somewhat generous). Rated R for horror violence and gore

"Caved In" features several 'name' actors who are unfortunately reduced to acting in such a by-the-books film. Christopher Atkins and Angela Featherstone play husband and wife John and Samantha Palmer who, along with their 2 children work as guides of some sort (I don't recall is being specifically stated what they do other than take people around strange places).

Instead of going on a family vacation, John Palmer accepts on offer of a lot of money to take some less-than-respectable people into some ancient caverns to hunt for a tomb full of emeralds. So he does, while his family are left to explore above-ground. Naturally, things get out of hand in the old tunnels when giant (CGI) beetles begin attacking, and one-by-one the bad guys all begin to get killed off, or double crossed. The bugs begin making their way to the surface, putting Palmer's family in even more danger.

The acting is not too bad, well, it shouldn't be considering who some of the cast are. Christopher Atkins and Angela Featherstone both give decent performances, but poor Colm Meany, formerly of "Star Trek" fame is reduced to little in his role here. Monica Dean and David Palffy are fairly good in their roles as criminals, though one of them has a heart. Chelan Simmons spends the entire movie being unlivable annoying and / or running around screaming. It's a good thing her acting ability also improves for her next film "Final Destination 3".

Sci-Fi and Horror are combined often for films ("Event Horizon", "Alien") but do not always work well together. This is one of those cases where it's really personal preference, as the film lacks a lot of things, but it is not without trying.

Plot

Disguised as extreme adventurers, a group of high profile thieves unknowingly lead a group of wealthy tourists on an expedition through an abandoned salt mine that is guarded by ancient creatures.

Cast

Christopher Atkins stinks up every scene he's in, which is sadly most of them. Veteran Colm Meaney looks very out of place and Angela Featherstone and Chelan Simmons both deserve better.

Verdict

When you go in to a Scyfy Original you need to know something, you're likely in for a 90 minute migraine caused by bad writing, awful cgi and more goofs and inconsistencies than you could possibly imagine. Why do we put ourselves through them? I'll let you know when I've figured it out myself!

Caved In is one of the worst I believe I've seen, it doesn't even have the novelty factor of those of the past decade or so and their insistence on combining things to make a premise such as Piranhaconda, Arachnoquake, Ghost Shark, Dragon Wasps etc. A group of people go into a long since boarded up mine which is mysteriously illuminated and face off with giant awfully animated bugs, throw in a sideplot about criminal element and the obligatory goofy kids and you have Caved In.

Awful head scratching stupidity.

Rants

I must applaud user cbrow on his review and list of goofs, there's stuff in there I hadn't even picked up on and demonstrates further that Scyfy can't think much of their audience, either that or they are just dumber than a pierced bag of farts.

The Good

Meaney and Featherstone are always appreciated

The Bad

Goof after goof Dreadful cgi Lead has no place in the industry, he's that bad.

Take the monsters out of the plot and you might have had a good adventure story, the sort of things we used to see on Saturday afternoons. Oh well, the monsters were a good addition to the plot anyway. Wait . . . did I just say "plot"? I did, didn't I? Oops, my mistake. This was yet another fill-in-the-blank story that managed to offer a few surprises but not many.

Our hero is taken hostage by some French terrorists (insert joke here) who hold his wife and children captive while he is forced to lead a group of them through an abandoned mine in search of a fortune in emeralds allegedly buried there. Now right away you know there are going to be problems and the problem in this movie is:

A. Personality clashes

B. Cave-ins

C. Giant prehistoric Rhinoceros Beetles

D. Bad special effects

E. Bad acting

Did you say "all of the above"? Good! You obviously know what to expect from movies like this. The leader of the terrorists is such an unlikable crumb you just know something really awful is going to happen to him and sure enough, it does! The gun toting psychopath named Marcel who is holding the hero's wife and daughter hostage is just as bad and meets an equally awful fate after he has been in the picture long enough for the audience to really get to hate him.

The giant beetles, and there are loads of them, are fairly well rendered but when they attack you get the feeling you are not watching a movie but a video game. Several of the monsters have a tendency to explode when hit by high velocity bullets and you could almost see a score getting progressively higher in the upper right hand corner of the screen if you use your imagination. CGI effects like these will never replace stop motion animation; at least not in my opinion.

So is this movie good? I've seen better, LOTS better!