The Hive

I don't know why I keep attempting to watch a film made by the Sci-Fi network. Somehow, I think that just maybe this one will be decent. But, as usual, it sucks! When will I learn? You can bet that when you hear the announcement, "An original Sci-Fi film" it will be the usual lame story line. Some painfully bad CGI creation of a killer creature (super sized snakes and reptiles seem to be the favorites) attacking a group isolated, stranded idiots. And when I say "painfully bad CGI", it truly is painful to watch. ("I confess, just turn the channel!") I've seen better effects from the original Nintendo games! What I find even sadder is that some of the stars who sign up for these catastrophes are ones that "I thought" were on the fast track to great careers. Actors like, Stephen Baldwin, Michael Pare, Casper Van Dien & Dean Cane to name a few seem to keep reappearing in these features. I like to think that maybe they new managers or that there is just no quality work going on.

But, you can always count on the Sci-Fi channel to be in production of another low budget cookie cutter flick. I guess you gotta take what work you can get. Unfortunately, I believe that starring in these films is just going to keep you starring in these films. So you can kiss the Oscar goodbye!!!! "The Night of the Lepus", now there's a good cheesy I could enjoy over and over again. And that starred Janet Leigh, Deforest Kelly and Stuart Whitman.....what bet did they lose?

Hive, The (2008)

* (out of 4)

Extremely bad "nature" flick about two-hundred million (give or take a couple) ants that are ravaging through South Asia. The critters are eating countless people until a controversial extermination group comes in but soon they begin to think they're dealing with something much larger. I'll never claim to be any type of expert but I'm pretty sure the title, THE HIVE, is incorrect as ants live in colonies so I'm not sure what's up with the title or anything else that happens in this movie. I'm really not sure where to start on this one but I guess we can start with the actual story. Sure, I guess we could make a movie about millions of ants eating people but this film takes it a step further. Early in the film one of the workers has an ant crawl into his ear and to his brain. Soon this ant is "controlling" the man to do what the ants want but it doesn't stop here because it turns out that aliens are the ones doing all of this stuff. The story is just downright stupid but just when you think it can't get any worse it actually does. I think another major issue is the CGI, which is really bad. The effects are so obviously fake that you can never take anything serious and not for a single second will you actually think or feel as if you're watching all of these ants. What's worse is that at the end of the film the ants are teaming together and creating various things including an arm that can come down and pick someone up. Yes, more dumbness. The performances in the film are pretty much what you'd expect from a film like this and there's no question that the screenplay does none of them any justice. I think the biggest problem is that the film is simply boring. As wild, stupid and crazy as this thing is you'd think that it would at least be entertaining in a bad way but it isn't.

When the residents of the Bao Tao Island are attacked by ants, the government hires the Thorax Company to work with the army to exterminate the ants. The scientist Len (Kal Weber) and his friend Bill (Tom Wopat) are attacked by a swarm and lose communication with Debs (Jessica Reavis) that is recording from the base. One ant enters into Bill's ear and reaches his brain, affecting his behavior. The scientist Claire (Elizabeth Healey) arrives in the island and team-up with Len, and soon they discover that the ants can communicate and they want the island for them.

"The Hive" is a laughable and awfully dumb sci-fi. The first scene with the ants attacking a mother and her baby is violent and gives a wrong idea about the movie. However the story is so stupid that it is hard to believe that a producer invest his money in such garbage. And the ants have affected the brain of the viewer that liked (he rated 8 stars) this flick and has written about "an epidemic in Brazil" (LOL). My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "O Ataque das Formigas" ("The Attack of the Ants")

The acting seemed okay as in I could believe they believed what they where saying. Often though what they said demonstrated a complete lack of basic science or what they had just said a few lines ago. Some kind of science adviser, even a kindergarten one, would have done wonders for the movie. Energy weapon versus chemical weapon, Endoskeleton versus exoskeleton, what a biological computer might look like and what it definitely would not look like. Keep in mind most of these guys are supposed to be highly educated. The Professor's role seemed contrary at every turn. He taught these people but can't seemed to address a simply first aide problem...? Really? I don't really understand what they were trying to do with the end though I would love to meet the writer just to find out how things could have gone so wrong. I think they were just going for "let's see how much we can cram in this!" The suits and guns were kinda cool. This goes in the category of if I could watch it again for the first time I probably would but would never watch it after that.

Bad, bad, bad. And worse!

This flimsy piece of Sci-Fi wish-wash is so contemptuously awful, I could not suffer to watch it all. After forty minutes of mind-numbing banality, I was forced to switch it off.

So where did it go wrong? My timer indicated 00:00:30. For a start the acting was so lame, in some scenes (notably the party scene,) not even a vet could have saved it.

The CGI was quite possibly the worst set of special effects ever to have inflicted itself onto my screen. Perhaps if I'd watched it through a woolly sock after rubbing olbas oil into my eyeballs it might have looked half decent, but I'm not going to give it the satisfaction.

The plot I can't really comment on as I was fortunate enough to stop it in its tracks. However, I can say that the first forty minutes that I did see must have been written on the back of a napkin, and then accidentally washed.

The script must have been on the other side. It was so jam-packed with pointless rhetoric and hackneyed clichés that the six or seven lines that did try to drive the plot must have had delusions of adequacy.

My verdict: Maybe this was meant for the ants to enjoy.

That said, though, if I was an ant, I'd rather find a magnifying glass on a sunny day.