User reviews

Another hokey Sci-Fi channel offering, this time the monsters on the loose are smart cockroaches that swarm around a lot. The cucarachas croak a bus driver who likes to smash his bus through office building lobbies, then somebody gets killed in a bombing. You guessed it: a government conspiracy is behind it all.

Our heroes include a Jordache Jeans commercial guy (brother of the bombing victim), and a lady cop who shoots anything she sees: roach swarms, boxes, trucks, cars, buildings, into mid-air, and occasionally even a bad guy. When Officer Ripley runs out of ammunition with one weapon, she grabs another gun and resumes firing. As for Jordache, he just sticks his nose everywhere, while bodies pile up. The cop captain is the usual skeptic who does nothing, and the head honcho nasty guy is a comical stereotype, who snarls when he talks. They even had the nerve to use the ridiculous "bad guy pauses to explain the evil plot to the good guys before shooting them" routine. The obvious poetic justice is served, of course.

But stay tuned for the grand finale. The debut of one of the most hilariously inept monster creatures ever spawned still awaits you. He was about as intimidating as a Teletubby, and the final scene had me laughing until I could hardly breathe.

A hilariously stupid movie.

The only way I got through this movie was by watching it with my brothers, continuously adding our own humorous commentary over the dialog. There are so many "also-ran" actors in this film it began to resemble a Burgess Meredith re-union party. Oh, and what is the deal with Mickey Rourke? He appears in one scene, and leaves the viewer aghast at his silly antics. I mean, was there a point to him knocking that door off it's hinges? Surely it's a bad sign for a film when the producers rely on Mr.Rourke for his "star power" to pull in the crowds. One can only ponder what next for Mickey, perhaps a starring role in Ishtar II? About the only redeeming feature of this film, were the sporadic CG cockroach attacks, and even they left much to be desired. Avoid this film unless you enjoy boredom, or simply need evidence of how far Mickey Rourke has sunk. 4/10

I have noticed in a lot of my reviews I have mentioned how beer may make the movie better. There is not enough beer on Earth to make this movie watchable!!! This movie just...SUCKED!! Bad acting,story,plot,effects and so on. It's not even bad in a good way and I like bad movies. I have had more entertaining dumps than this flick!!

This film could easily be a comedy, unless someone is 15 years old or younger. Rourke shows up only once and for about 5 min. The man obviously doesn't take his job seriously, not anymore... The whole concept of this movie is a joke! We 've seen it again hundreds of times. And the final scene! What an idea! Thousands of programmed mutant-robot-(god knows what else)-cockroaches come together to form a giant monster cockroach!!! GIVE US PEOPLE A BREAK!

Oke I confess, I bought this film. To my defense I can say that it was on sale in a local supermarket and the box said there were bugs, lots of them.

So when I popped in the movie I saw the whole action part of redheat with the busses ( only 1 person mentioned this while reviewing, am I that old:), the last action hero bit with the exploding house and the rush hour bit with the exploding floor. Oh yes and the exploding warehouse bit from that stinker with that guy from the matrix, forgot the title and I am too lazy to check for it, the movie isn't worth it.

on the bright side, well it does have its share of explosions. that are out of place even if you don't spot the films there ripped out of. The general setting is so cheap every B movie veteran can smell something fishy while watching it. But one can laugh about the crappy insects that ran straight out of a computer, the fact that the jeep the main character drives has a broken mirror in once scene and a fixed mirror in the other and one can giggle when seeing the uber roach at the end.

Which is by the way the only decent idea in the whole movie. As already stated the plot is not there at all, uncle Mickey just walked on the wrong set - this guy looks like utter s**t btw, what has happened to him- and the very important plot question ( how are the bugs controlled) is forgotten.

My advice, let someone else rent it ( and let someone else pay for it) fall asleep until the last few minutes and then catch the uber roach which is also crappy but shows at least a cool idea behind it.

And on a sidenote, why on earth are movie companies stock footaging the action scenes from their movies to stinkers like this? I have seen it plenty of times already and it truly shocks me to see this??

Put a gun to your own head and pull the trigger. Actually that seems really good compared to watching this boring pile of garbage. the main guy is the weird dude from Van Wilder so every time I look at him I see him drinking Pit Bull C-u-m.

Ridiculous story with so many irrelevant plots going that I felt like gagging, A cult, the military, some drug dealers, a university and Tone Loc all get together and rub one out on a cookie. The C-u-m eater eats it obviously.

I wish I could find whoever decided to go ahead with this movie and punch him in the crotch. Seriously, f him.

Sci-Fi not at its best. Ted Gage(Daniel Cosgrove)is a disgraced serviceman who returns home and teams up with a spunky female detective Gina O'Bannon(Tamara Davies)to find out who killed his computer geek brother. The computer whiz was earning his way through college by "cooking" and dealing drugs. And his project on the side was helping create super smart cockroaches for the Government. Adding to the human drama is a rash of killings that may be related to a human sacrificing cult led by Tiny Frakes(Mickey Rourke). Meanwhile the engineered cockroaches continue to due damage. Also in the cast are: Dennis Boutsikaris, Brandon Karrer, Tone Loc and Scott Rinker.

THEY CRAWL is ostensibly a cockroach invasion creature flick but when watching you could be forgiven for thinking you're watching a typical movie-of-the-week government conspiracy thriller. The storyline sees a couple of cops on the trail of some naughty scientists into genetic modification who have engineered some super-duper cockroaches as part of research into biological warfare.

Those expecting massed creature attacks will surely be disappointed because, inevitably, the cockroach attacks play second fiddle to this rather dull police investigation stuff. The characters just aren't interesting enough to hold the attention and you end up waiting for the next roach attack. Said attacks are animated by CGI, which is expected, and look like they've been heavily inspired by THE MUMMY. They're not bad but not quite as gruesome as you'd expect.

Part of the fun here comes from spotting the footage ripped off from other movies - yep, it's a cut 'n' paste production that would make Godfrey Ho proud. I was surprised and delighted by the expensive-looking 'bus out of control' set-piece that opens the movie and sure enough it was stolen from RED HEAT. The producers seem to have a Schwarzenegger fetish as they also borrow liberally from LAST ACTION HERO as well as CHAIN REACTION and RUSH HOUR.

Cast-wise, there are slim pickings here with the only recognisable actor being Dennis Boutsikaris, who had a starring role in BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED back in the 1980s. Mickey Rourke makes an amusing cameo as a superhuman killer and there's a little role for B-movie favourite Tim Thomerson pretty much riffing on the John Goodman character from ARACHNOPHOBIA. Things build to a preposterous but admittedly amusing climax in which the cockroaches display some truly unexpected behaviour, but this is B-movie territory all the way.

There are some bugs, and some footage that is inserted from other films. Then there is a confrontation with a character called Tiny Frakes (Mickey Rourke)

Tiny (Rourke) mumbles for a minute or two then flees wildly, racing through the building and out of sight. Much like he should have fled his agents office when they suggested he cameo in this movie.

This was a great movie. With the C rated actors and execellent dialog, this movie drew you into a world where killer cockroaches rull the world. Dispite the numerous use of stock footage from such movies as "Last Action Hero" and "Chain Reaction" this was a great movie to watch while drunk. All of this leading up to the final scene where the king cochroach begins his final revenge. 4 stars.

Please for the love of god be drinking while watching this masterpiece.

The only reason I rented this movie from Netflix was because a very good friend of mine worked on it. Even he said it was awful, and that he only took the job to keep his bills paid.

But my god, what a piece of absolute rubbish! Aside from the pitiful performances, a plot that made little sense, the cheapest CGI since the Atari 2400, a script with no punch, and a directorial style that lacks .. well, direction .. it's not a bad film.

How, exactly, did "Lazarus" command the cockroaches? What exactly was the point of Mickey Rourke's character? We know why Mickey Rourke was hired, he was the celebrity "draw" that's supposed to make us viewers say "Wow, it must be a great movie if it has Mickey Rourke!" And when all the cockroaches group together to become one giant cockroach .. well, yeah .. Lame.

One positive note; the actor who played Lazarus was actually a pretty good actor. Sure, he had a stupid role and ridiculous lines, but he actually pulled the part off pretty well. He reminded me a little bit of a Benicio del Toro.

If you're thinking of renting this movie, do yourself a favor and just stick an ice pick in your eye.

With Mickey Rourke listed as one of the stars, I expected some straight to video drivel or a bad Sci-Fi original movie. Surprisingly, it was pretty cool save for (you guessed it)Mickey Rourke. His involvement is one of only two complaints I had about the movie (the other was the reuse of stunt footage from other movies i.e., Rush Hour and Red Heat). Credible special effects (particularly the end) and strong characters (especially the female lead) made this an enjoyable surprise.

After a series of strange accidents are found to be from a race of mutated cockroaches used in a secret military project, a man and a detective team up to stop the creatures' rampage and put a stop to the experiments.

This is an entertaining if somewhat complex effort that comes off as quite enjoyable regardless. One of the better facets here is the fact that this one is a lot smarter than expected from a simple creature feature, with the investigation angle that eventually uncovers the different agencies working together through all the different clues coming together yet still being done without really sacrificing the pace to do so. This could've easily been a slow, agonizingly dull creature feature without much going for it had it used the mysterious death/investigation angle, yet it doesn't and it feels better for doing so. The attacks are also surprisingly bloodier than expected and we get more gore than it really figures to have, and with the use of the real creatures it makes for even more good times. There's some flaws to be had here, mainly in the far-more-confusing plot getting tough to swallow at times as it goes along its many winding turns that can grow wearisome quite easily. As well, the finale is quite underwhelming with its sudden twist that doesn't really make sense and tends to showcase a big CGI creation instead of the more restrained, realistic feel it had been going for all along. Still, this one isn't all that bad of an effort.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

Not a bad movie all in all. It plays out as a murder mystery with a secretive sci-fi experiment back story. The acting is good, the plot keeps you guessing what's coming next, the special effects are above average. It's entertaining for a lower budget film. The ending is a little difficult to suspend your disbelief, but that's a only a small complaint.

Read between the lines here and you'll learn its yet another White House Cover Up. The American government has long been rumoured to be conducting experiments on bug genetics and in the future they'll stop spending money on bombs and simply drop a few 1000 of these mutant insects wherever they are at War next. Its the cheapest way ever of killing people and leaves no traces. These bugs are very angry and very hungry and can deplete a large size area in a matter of days. Checking the User comments few poeople have understood the political implications here. But the very last frame of a single cockroach leaves it wide open for They Crawl 2