The Hive

After watching a movie, I always like to take a moment to contemplate about what I've learned from my viewing. "The Hive" taught me that if ants would ever grow self-aware of their capacities and become more organized, the human race wouldn't stand a chance for survival. That is of course the case for every insect species on this planet, if you think about it. Well, except maybe for ladybugs, because what are they going to do? Cute us to death? "The Hive" is an almost entirely computer engineered and made-for-TV creature feature about killer ants, so you know to keep your expectations rather low. On a slightly more positive note, the plot here is most similar to the underrated 70's Sci-Fi/horror gem "Phase IV", and that just happens to be the best killer ant movie ever accomplished. That particular gem also presented the hypothesis that ants, suddenly and without apparent reason, began to control and develop their intelligence with disastrous consequences for mankind. In sheer contrast to "Phase IV", however, "The Hive" lacks any sense of subtlety and plausibility. There were the 70's movie was thought-provoking and genuinely disturbing, the development of the ants in this movie is just ludicrous and exaggeratedly blown out of proportions. Set in rural Thailand, an entire region is suddenly overrun by an enormous and aggressive colony of millions and millions of ants – even different subspecies are combining their forces – that in a very short time span devour harvests, cattle and even poor villagers. The ants structure their mobility, plan their attacks, learn to set death traps and even send a spy into the brain of a hired exterminator. Later on, they even build some sort of central computer entirely out of ants and generate their own electricity. How brilliant is that? The government hires the world famous Thorax extermination team. They wear cool outfits, drive in macho hummers and use highly advanced bazookas that disintegrate a couple of hundred ants at once. This still isn't efficient enough, though, so the team leader has to go to the ants' headquarters in an island cave and "negotiate" with them. Yes, that's exactly how retarded this movie is. But hey, no further complaints from my side regarding the film's entertainment factor. Any dumb horror movie that opens with a sequence in which a mother and her three-month old infant are savagely eaten by insects is guaranteed to enjoy my full attention. "The Hive" suffers from too many boring sequences and an overload of wannabe intellectual dialogs, but the ants attacks are campy good fun. Additional warning: don't sit around and wait to see the seemingly cute girl with the impressive rack that is illustrated on the DVD cover. She doesn't appear and the film and, in fact, it doesn't contain any sleaze or nudity whatsoever. Bummer!

The acting in this movie is mostly indifferent. Is this sci-fi? They have to be kidding (ants that crawl fast enough to catch running humans, and even give an SUV a run for its money)! Couple this pretty lame plot with some of the worst camera-work ever to be seen on TV or in the cinema, and you have the movie in a nutshell. Ultra close ups to the point where you can't work out what's going on (though you can see every blemish in the actors skin), wobbly cameras, to name but a few. The CGI ants are below average, and the final dénouement about the cause of everything just leaps from the improbable to the downright silly. Monty Python would have been proud of the ending! Give this a miss! Two stars (just because Elizabeth Healey is pretty).

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")

I do not dare to call myself a film critic but I think I do know how to appreciate a good film and differentiate between a good movie and a bad one. And in my opinion, this is a rather bad one, given the technology in film-making of 2008.

Honestly, when I play the movie, I thought it was made in the 1980s. The whole texture of the film just looks cheap and unpolished. Even if it's done on a low-budget, I assumed given the abundance of hi-tech equipment and all today, there should be at least some quality to making this film (apparently I was wrong). None of the characters look good(except for the lead actor who look like Keanu Reeves at times)and frankly, I would not turn my head to have another look at them if they passed me by on the streets.

The plot is ridiculous and the twist at the end of the movie just made me deemed this film as stupid rather than pleasantly surprising. The CGI is really really bad and childish. And to be called a sci-fi movie, the special effects should be the most basic component that the film-makers should invest money in. I would probably had felt better if it was seriously just a plain good horror movie about man-eating ants destroying things and end up being destroyed by humans. This, to me is more convincing than telling me that the ants are controlled by aliens. I am utterly disappointed in this movie and though I do not deny the fact this movie has the potential to be good, it failed badly this time as I do not see the effort in the film-making process.

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.