SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Ploydsge just watch it!

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

dsgraham212002 Campiness may be defined according to the Cambridge Online Dictionary as follows: "Of (​behavior, ​appearance, or an ​activity) ​amusing because it is ​obviously ​intended to be ​strange or ​shocking and ​seems to be ridiculing itself." This describes "Empire of the Ants" to a tee.The actors in this horrid offering out of many horrid offerings from producer and director, Bert I. Gordon aka "Mr. Big", are so serious in this thing. The special effects are so awfully-fake and ridiculous, you laugh even as the puppet ants are literally chewing up the cast and there's not even much blood! The women's screams will make you want to shout, "Shut up and die already!". Robert Pine's character is such a loathsome and cowardly lothario that you can't wait to see how he will meet his maker. You probably won't care one iota if ANY of them survive their ordeal, I assure you.Oh, the poor actors in this schlock-fest! Of course, in all of the scenes with the phony 'projected' ants, they could not see them until post-production when they were inserted, so to speak. I'm sure they were all sorry for being involved and probably fired a few agents, despite whatever they were paid. Another example of 'What was I thinking about when I agreed to star in this turkey?'. Another example was the even-more-awful "The Giant Claw" from 1957. The special effects have to be seen to be believed and the acting so deadly-serious. The combination is pure campy entertainment, just like this piece of cinematic dung. Check both of these out, and you'll see what I mean!

BA_Harrison Twenty years after over-sized mutant killer ants went on the rampage in classic 1957 creature feature Them!, Bert I. Gordon, an old hand at giant monster movies, gave the enormous insects another chance at world domination with Empire of the Ants, a schlocky big bug eco-horror apparently based on a short story by H.G. Wells.Joan Collins stars as scam artist Marilyn Fryser, who convinces a bunch of potential investors to accompany her on a boat trip to view her latest project, a coastal real estate development in the Everglades. After a few drinks, a couple of sandwiches, and a tram ride around the site (Marilyn sure knows how to spoil her guests), the group find themselves under attack from giant ants that have been exposed to leaky barrels of radioactive waste dumped in the sea by unscrupulous industrialists.Empire of the Ants is supremely silly stuff, especially when it is revealed that the insects are controlling the humans (via hypnotic ant farts!) and intend to take over the planet. Sadly it is also a surprisingly leaden affair, with uninspired direction, dire performances, and any potential tension or excitement hindered by weak special effects: most of the giant ant action is created by superimposing photographically enlarged insects over footage of the actors or through the use soft edged mattes to combine imagery, none of which is very convincing. Full-sized models of giant ants are occasionally used during close-up attack scenes, but Gordon ensures that the camera is wobbling frenetically to prevent the viewer from getting a good look at his shonky creatures.

classicsoncall Oh my, where to begin. You'd think with the passing of almost two decades since 1959's "Them", special effects technology would have made a dramatic improvement in presenting giant insects on the big screen. After all, "Star Wars" came out in 1977 too. Alas, not to be.After all this time this is the first Joan Collins movie I've ever seen and it was a kick watching her try to peddle worthless swamp land to a group of unsuspecting potential buyers. Now I know where the Kardashian look originated, just get a good eyeful of Collins' makeup and hair and you can see how that whole style evolved into the present century. But this wasn't a glam picture, when Collins' character Marilyn Fryser states that the properties at Dreamland Shores are offered on a first come, first serve basis, you had to know that that's exactly what the giant mutant ants were thinking.The movie is a treasure trove of continuity gaffes and editing mistakes that make an already dumb picture even dumber. For example, right after the downpour, all the folks on the real estate tour caught in the rain are miraculously dry again. Then after the march through the swamp, alternating scenes have Marilyn's white skirt going from soiled to completely clean to dirty again. Even better than that though, during the battle with the ants at the sugar refinery, Joan Collins' character is shown outside with the others who have escaped and then she's back in the glass chamber with the queen ant again! After a while it begins to look like this was all done on purpose, and maybe it was - who knows? You know, I couldn't help thinking that this movie could have been a whole lot better, even if nothing else was changed but to make it in glorious black and white. Then it might have ranked right up there with some of the other great mutant flicks of the late Fifties - "Them", "The Killer Shrews", "The Giant Gila Monster" and the granddaddy of them all - "Godzilla".But then, on second thought - Nah!

Julie Kinnear This is not a good movie. It aspires to mediocrity and fails. The acting is generally bad, the dialogue is forgettable at best, the characters aren't very interesting, and the special effects are so bad they're the highlight of the film.Before I rant further, a synopsis is in order. Filmed in 1977, under the direction of Bert I. Gordon (creator of such classics as Satan's Princess, Earth vs the Spider, and Attack of the Puppet People, just to give you fair warning), Empire of the Ants takes place on an unnamed island off the Florida coast, where the unprincipled Marilyn Fryser (Joan Collins) is trying to sell pieces of beach to a boatload of would- be land owners. For reasons never even remotely explained, this area is the dumping ground for mysterious, sinister silver toxic waste, which has somehow transformed some of the local ants into gigantic, moderately intelligent monsters intent on either enslaving or devouring any human beings who cross their path.But they don't manage to devour all the right people.Marilyn Fryser's 'Dreamland Shores' development is the latest in a series of scams. She's hard on her employees, tricks customers into deeply inconvenient contracts, and every one of her anti-ant ideas turns out to be wrong. By the rules of most monster movies, Fryser should die a particularly gruesome and humiliating death about halfway through film. Here, she makes it all the way to the end without any apparent character development or redemption.It has to be said though, that while they're not so blatantly amoral, the other main characters are no more interesting than Fryser. There's Joe (John David Carson), the dull young guy with 'designated hero' stamped on his forehead, Coreen (Pamela Shoop), the hysterically screaming blonde, Dan (Robert Lansing), the quiet, practical tough guy, and Margaret (Jacqueline Scott) the thoughtful, sensible woman who clings to him whenever the bugs show up.On top of their badly-acted blandness, these characters aren't gradually revealed and developed, but are dropped on us in a heap over the course of one long beach-picnic scene. A few scabs are bared, chemistry fails to happen.., and then the ants show up and none of it matters very much for the rest of the movie.I could wail and nitpick my way through Empire of the Ants for ages, but since it is a giant-bug movie, priority ought to be given to the special effects. The term 'special' here is extremely euphemistic.Groan all you like about the modern fondness for CGI, a little computer magic would have gone a long way in this film. The ant effects come in two main flavours; the fairly lifelike, but not very menacing footage of real ants, which vaguely wave their legs around, climb up invisible walls, and sometimes face the wrong way, and the close-quarter model ants, which look a bit silly, don't move like insects, and are inexplicably furry in places. It doesn't help that the real ant footage has been blown up to look much larger than the physical models, so that the ants keep changing size. They can also pop up out of thin air. A tangle of huge, noisy ants can apparently teleport into any scene, even when the characters really ought to have seen them from a distance (or heard them. Not only do they emit a sort of fantasy-insect buzzy shriek, they also scream now and then. I don't know why. Maybe Coreen inspired them).