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Touches You

Pretty Good

Admirable film.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

As far as cheesy made for television genre movies with digital effects go, "Bugs" offers a decent enough diversion. It stars Antonio Sabato, Jr. as an FBI agent named Pollack who is on the trail of a serial killer. The trail leads him to a totally unrelated circumstance, that of enormous, bloodthirsty insects terrorizing a subway tunnel that is under construction. He teams with a sexy insect expert, Dr. Emily Foster (Angie Everhart) to save the day.'Bugs' has a pretty routine script, with routine and annoying characters for the most part. There is a pathologically greedy tycoon (Karl Pruner) who doesn't want ANYTHING to spoil his plans. This character is set up as being so reprehensible (and over the top) that you keep waiting for him to get his comeuppance. There's also a team of commandos, turned into chopped meat by the rampaging critters.Anybody watching will automatically peg this as a typical "Aliens" wannabe, hampered by the constraints of TV level budgeting, uneven CGI (but fairly well designed bugs), dumb dialogue, and some lame performances. Sabato is an extremely stoic hero, the kind of guy who only ever seems to have one expression on his face. Everhart is quite easy to watch, playing the kind of tough, capable heroine who has brains to match her hotness. Veteran Canadian character actor R.H. Thomson makes the most of his role as the hotshot who designed and built these tunnels. Horror buffs will enjoy seeing the lovely Lynne Griffin ("Black Christmas" '74, "Curtains") in a cameo as the Deputy Medical Examiner.Mildly thrilling at best, with a fortunately decent pace and short running time (if you watch it on DVD) that keeps it from being too painful.Five out of 10.

Two, maybe three years ago, I surely would have bashed this movie entirely and probably wouldn't have been able to mention one minor positive note about it. "Bugs" back then would have been just another imbecilic creature-feature produced by the infamous Sci-Fi channel and exclusively aimed at undemanding audiences over-enthusiast to see big monsters and loads of blood. But the (sad) truth now is that I've seen so many horrible and even downright embarrassing Sci-Fi (these days re- baptized as SyFy) lately that "Bugs" all of a sudden doesn't come across so bad anymore. Compared to crap like "Troglodyte", "Sharktopus" and whatever else, this a more than endurable movie. Like pretty much every other movie revolving on over-sized animals ever made, "Bugs" is a rip- off of Steven Spielberg's "Jaws". The giant shark has obviously been replaced with giant insects and the sunny beaches that must absolutely remain open during high tourist season have been replaced with a newly finished subway of which the opening ride with prominent guests absolutely has to take place. The rest of the scenario is fairly obvious, predictable and includes the possible stereotypical characters and clichéd situations you can think of. Still, the action sequences are quite entertaining, with above average special effects (director Joe Conti is primarily an F/X guy) and good old-fashioned cheesy dialogs. The explanation on where the bugs come from is rather grotesque and laughable, but hey, at least the movie bothers to provide an explanation. I've seen more than enough dumb creature features where the monsters' origins are never even clarified. There's some decent gore and bloodshed to enjoy, especially during the train's opening ceremony massacre, and it was nice to see sexy redhead Angie Everhart again. I will most certainly forget that I've seen "Bugs" in a few weeks from now, but at least I wasn't bored or annoyed while it lasted. That's already an accomplishment these days.

Seriously folks, if this movie was touted and marketed as a tongue in cheek satire of the 'Alien' franchise and they amended the movie so ever slightly - it would be hilarious. However, the producers; God love 'em, tried in vain for a serious horror sci-fi and failed in monumental proportions.Where do we start?? Nasty supposedly dormant 65 million year old bugs come to life in a subway. A terrible explanation of why the construction crew did not get attacked ... well leave that alone and utterly suspend disbelief... and not for the first time!!It is so obvious that the this movie was influenced extremely heavy by the 'Alien' franchise, and throw in a bit of 'Mimic' for good measure.. so the similarities??(1) Aliens had the colonial Marines, Bugs have the S.W.A.T. (2) The S.W.A.T. mirror the Marines counterparts as well- Hudson, Hicks, Vasquez, Drake et al (3) Virtual copy of dialogue, death scenes - but VERY poorly done. (4) Alien; drones and Queen... yep same for Bugs. (5) Same corporate bad guy putting spanner in works... meets same demise!! (6) Ripley wannabee in the shape of C.D.C lady. (7) Poor attempt at copying the cinematography from 'Alien3' for Bugs sight. (8) Bug sounds, death knells, disintegration shots VERY similar to 'Aliens' (9) 'Can't afford to let even one of those...'and... the pièce de résistance .. and I wish I was joking(10) 'Aliens'; Ripley takes on the Queen with that way cool Loader... 'Bugs'; Takes on the Queen with, I kid you not, a fork lift!!Seriously, 'IF' for some extraordinarily torturous reason you wish to actively seek this movie out to view it, approach it as a violent satirical comedy/parody of 'Alien'. Even though I could safely disclose the ending of Bugs due to 'Contains Spoilers'... I can't. Let's just say that the writers/producers/director have no idea what constitutes a proved and successful ending to a horror movie. You have been warned... *grins*

Of course, if you saw that dreadfully histrionic earthquake disaster of an NBC movie last month, you know exactly what I mean! It's become my new standard for rating truly bad, unbelievably cheesy movies. The SciFi Channel's "Bugs" ranks right up there - or should we say it is merely rank?With movies like this, it is almost as if the plot (such as it is) exists only for the sole purpose of tying together bombastic action sequences. In the case of "Bugs" the "action" wasn't enough to justify the convoluted story line. How many times did they recycle that same clip of the critters racketing down the rails towards the train? How is it in movies like this that the scientist always has some expertise that takes substantial time, if not decades, to acquire, but looks younger than most women in Oil of Olay ads? How is that credible? Naturally, the purpose of such diversions isn't so much credibility, but good, clean entertainment for a few hours...oh, and exposure to the ads of the sponsors."Bugs" was utterly predictable, right down to the miserable end of Reynolds - when he picked up the pistol at the end of the movie, you just knew what was coming next. We had a ball picking out inconsistencies, predicting who was gonna get it next and laughing over the ridiculously cheesy effects. I'll give it a solid Stilton on the CelluloiDiva Cheese-Meter and recommend for a night when you want to hold a "MST-it-yourself" party at home.