midge56
This underrated movie had excellent Quality in every aspect except perhaps screenplay. The photography, Audio & editing are comparable in quality to any top rated scifi. It also had recognizable Stars like John Beck (Mark Grayson on Dallas). It also had some fairly decent effects. The story was good regarding 2 engineered creatures from a CIA front company. One creature sent to Mars kills the astronauts. A second creature, stolen using sophisticated methodologies which gets loose. Inside job. Agents & developers sent to find it.Here are the weak points in the screenplay. Dumb character behaviors such as putting their hands in creature goo, wearing no protection, having no weapons when sneaking up on it (such as a freeze gun or flame thrower or chemical deterrent) until the end. Scientists can't describe their own creation, have no sense of urgency, have bad attitudes and are of no help, 3 ignore their own tracking device alerting the creatures presence, and go right where they shouldn't (even though they know it is there & just killed their teammates). The town is not evacuated & no military presence (probably lack of budget.) Town cop locks up gov't & NASA agent. Gov't agent is a bad version of a 007 wannabe (not the actors fault). The screenplay must have been written by an untrained neophyte. Except for the screenplay, this movie is excellent quality. Better than the junk films getting hundreds of millions which can't compare to this underrated film. The critics sound like 10 year olds who trash things as bullies wanting attention. This film doesn't deserve the treatment this roving gang of underage neophytes & bullies are dishing out. This movie was shamelessly included as one of two bonus movies on a DVD which was only listed after you started the DVD. Yet the real rotten movies far worse always seem to get their own DVD with great artwork & disappointment when you start them. There are bad movies, but this isn't one of them. People also need to remember the actors are following a specific script, dialogue, behavior & setting. They are following script & direction. They do what they are told by the script & director. Not making it up as they go along.Don't listen to people who deliberately trash good films like beating up a school mate just for the fun of it.This came on an Asteroid DVD at Walmart. I highly recommend the film. Especially to those who loved 50's & 60's & 80's scifi. The story; reminds me of an Outer limits episode, The Voyage Home, in the 90's where a creature from Mars came back with the Astronauts (One was Michael Dorn, Worf from Star Trek). He was in that OL episode. Not this film. Their creature had a few more tricks but similar.This film has better production quality than Alien Even better than the recent Star Wars film with Ford & Fisher.This film has a recognizable cast & a decent story. If not for the screenplay with poorly written scenes. Actually, the scenes were good. It was the character behaviors in those scenes which were badly written. This could have been a top ten movie if they had been given enough budget for an upgraded creature. I rarely rate movies this high.Try it. If those of you over 40 like it, please share it.
Matthewwk
well i first watched this movie today and from what i read in the TV Guide listing , i thought it would be good. The premise of the plot seemed like a good one, but they just didn't write the story well enough for it to be considered a hit. I started to get bored of it and do other things for a little bit in the beginning , but then i decided to go back and watch it tell it ended. some of the plot holes i noticed make the actors in the movies look like raging moons. Judging by how many i caught the time i actually watched this movie, there properly is more that i didn't see.The first one i noticed was when the 3 of so called, "Scientists" were in the house doing some computer research on viper. The power suddenly went out (there is there first clue they idiotically missed) so instead of realizing its viper , they just assume something unknown caused this power outage , even though they know viper is in town , and that he feeds on electricity because he is part hardware. Then the second part of this scene that made little sense to me , is that one of the Guys was actually dumb enough to go down into the basement to try and restart the breaker , which didn't work... DUH! Another thing that didn't make sense is instead of after hearing a loud growling noise , instead of running like a mad man out of there which he had time to do , he just stands there not even looking behind him at the basement for 5-10 seconds while Viper comes up behind him and rams him in the ass , eating him and killing him. How stupid can a person be ? I thought these guys where supposed to be smart ? Some of the techniques used in here make it look like a 60's horror film , and less like a 2002 Sci-fi flick. The next thing i noticed that made little sense was the Viper tracking machine was going off like a chicken with its head cut off, and the both the 2 guys who went into the basement went right by it and even looked at it for a second , but still continued , didn't they know it was a viper tracking system , and it was going off ? even a child could figure out something is up. The next thing that i guess sort a of make sense , but we didn't really know it at the time is , when the 2nd guy goes down into the basement , after seeing the dead guys remains that are left after viper ate him, he decides to have a sit on the step there and ponder his life. we find out later that he has some control of viper with that little device he has , but he didn't have it in his hands and viper could of killed him in seconds before he had time to shut viper down. The next thing i see is , after the girl scientist in the house sees the tracking device , she actually knows what it means , thats not the hole though , the hole is what happens next , she hears the 2nd guy on the phone talking to the guy that is funding his traitor-ist/spy what ever he is. She obviously can hear him because she's looking to see where he's out , so if she can hear what he's saying , why does she need to get closer for him to see her ? which soon after gets here killed ? what a stupid bimbo! There is no reason for her to stand out in the open so the 2nd guy can see her and know she's knows what's going on , other then so the guy can see her , and kill her. The next thing is after the guy goes into an office room there , she decides to go to the office where the guy in and fallow him i guess or maybe she wants to go out the door and runaway, she must really want to die. of course the guy comes out and starts chasing her around the house trying to kill her, the weird part is when the guy says no your not leaving and looks the door ? he doesn't use a key or anything , so why later when she comes back down stairs and tries to go out the door , wont it open ? last time i checked all you have to do is turn the look to unlock the door from the inside , the same lock he turned to so called lock it ? she either really dumb or really stupid , maybe both. She just really wants to die i guess , she then runs down into the basement , where she's 1 die is dead by viper , and decides to stay down there , until finally she gets killed. real shocker! geesh if that was a real situation , fate must of really hated her! The next one is more of a goof then a plot hole. When the guy and the girl are in the jail cell , and the 3rd guy that was the only survivor from the house shows up , were we learn he can control viper.etc. well when viper shows up there , viper is in the main jail room ,because the 3rd guy is standing next to him looking at the hero guy and girl who are still in the cell, but after he pushes the button viper falls down and then after the good guy opens the stall banging the 3rd guy in the head , he drops the controller , and it goes into the jail cell next to them , viper then re-emerges. after the girl kicks smacks the controller out of the cell , the guy steps on it smashing it , and viper rebuilds its self . then the good guy kicks the bad guy into the cell where viper is now ? wait i thought he was in the main room not a cell ?? and then when the Sheriff and deputy come in with shotguns and go cuss and start shooting at it , viper is in the main jail cell again! not in the jail stall where he was when the hero guy kicked the bad guy there into viper where he got ate. They screwed up this scene by putting viper where he needs to be to fit the script , and where he physically should be. well done writers!(sarcasm!) There are a few more but i just have to mention one more, that maybe be one of the biggest idiotic movies of this movie. When the sheriff and the hero and girl are in the cave , for some reason the sheriff tells them that he's dyeing of cancer and he should deploy the emp , so he grabs the emp bomb and decides like a complete moron to run right next to viper , i guess he wants to get eating quickly , and if he thinks that wouldn't happen , he's dumber then a rock , because of course viper immediately eats him! DUH ! I'm not sure why the writers wanted to kill him off like that , but hey what ever , maybe they where drinking when writing his part. Well thats all I'm going to tell about , i don't want to bore you to much :P i will give this movie a 3/10 for at least trying to put together a movie, but I'm sorry to say , you failed! Next time you write a movie , make sure the people who are portrayed in the movie have an IQ over 40 , or maybe the writer needs to have that before he writes another imbecile movie like this!
