La Fureur du Yeti

I was frustrated by another critics review given only 20 minutes into this great flick. Perhaps we really are the victims of high budget films losing our ability to appreciate anything with a budget under $100M.

As a low budget movie made on a shoestring this movie is great, the acting is sufficiently tongue in cheek for you to see the "ham i ness" as really a spoof on the high budget/ entirely CGI films.

The storyline mimics the feel of the early generation of scifi and is a great reminder of the originals in this space, "lost in space", "doctor who" and even "the day the earth stood still".

If you a movie that is clearly trying to be a very real movie, made by very real people then this is a movie for you. Also take a look at another one of David Hewletts home grown greats. "A dogs breakfast" then you will truly get an insight into this movie makers great ability to deliver a great product while gently tweaking the nose hairs of the movie making establishment.

As this is being written it is just over twenty minutes into the movie (including commercials). So far there have been numerous technical errors, an utterly stupefying plot, poor CGI, and a complete lack of acting ability; and those are the high points.

The movie does have three notable things about it.

• First, it is a well advertised SyFy movie feature on Saturday evening, so you know before it starts that it can't be very good, and you can keep your expectations low.

• Second, it took well less than ten minutes to confirm that the previous point was correct.

• Third, David Hewlett did not exactly repeat his Dr. Rodney McKay character from the Stargate series. What he did provide were a few scenes shot in a day or two so that his name could be included in the movie.

The only reason to watch this movie - once - when you have absolutely nothing else to do, is so that you never have to watch it again in your life.

And, for those who think that twenty minutes is not sufficient time to form an opinion about this garbage; the rest of the movie was, if anything, worse.

This movie is steaming pile of Yeti dung. The computer generated Yeti are hilarious. They look so fake that I laughed through every attack. The acting is even worse. None of these folks seem to be too upset as each of their friends get gobbled up by the Yeti. They wander off one at a time in a state complete stupidity. Flat dialog and poor effects add to the laughs. I actually enjoyed this film because it was so silly. If you have nothing better to do and are looking for some completely mindless entertainment then you'll find this to be a really funny funny movie. The female characters are all pretty cute so at least it has that going for it.

As far as SyFy original movies go, this one isn't too bad. Sure the acting is bad, but I have seen worse, sure the cgi is bad, but again, I have seen worse. I found the two main characters entertainingly ridiculous, and the whole movie had a very lighthearted feel to it that made it better than some others that try to be too serious for what they are. This movie knows it is a SyFy original and just has fun with it. The monster was interesting rather than just being another snake or crocodile, and the characters were entertaining rather than overly dramatic. Sure, it is a SyFy original, so it isn't some great blockbuster movie, but it is better than most of its kind. If you like SyFy originals, I recommend this one, if you don't, then yes, steer clear.

And to the other reviewer's comment on David Hewlett just doing a few scenes to add his name to the movie, maybe you should look at the director listed for the movie before you comment next time.

Upon arriving at an Arctic research station looking for the reason for the previous' crews disappearance, a team of hunters find the few survivors claiming a legendary creature is responsible and try to stop them from getting loose in order to get away from the base alive.

This one was overall pretty enjoyable. One of the better features is it's rather interesting take on a Sasquatch film, as this one decides to incorporate a little-known aspect of the legend about the Chinese variation being to live in the snow allowing this one to really play around with some new environments. The ability to blend into the snow and during the heavy storm going on at the same time makes these pretty threatening creature since this one has them popping out whenever they're not expected, which is definitely a great plus here and makes the film a lot more exciting. There's also some rather fun action scenes later on that that are plenty enjoyable, and the blood and gore are what's to be expected in a Sci-Fi Channel film. The main problem with this one, as mentioned earlier it's a Sci-Fi Channel film so expect the usual level of CGI, is that despite being billed as a Sasquatch film and mentioned within the dialog of the creatures' true identity, the decision to remove the humanoid basis and turn them into more like mutated polar boars is a curious one, as they move and act like so rather than of the more human-like variations that should've populated the film. Otherwise, this one was pretty enjoyable.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Language.