Outbreak

Not a *good* movie exactly, but a significant improvement over most Sci-Fi Channel original movies. It had some humor, and the movie worked best when it was its silliest. The more serious scenes tended to just slow the movie down.

If you like Vincent Ventresca (Invisible Man), he does some decent work with a not too great script. There are some other good actors too, but they don't quite manage to rise above the script as much.

Unfortunately, the best that can be said about Mammoth is that it is an improvement for Sci-Fi Channel. Hopefully their original movies will continue to improve.

Having read the few lines we get on the on-screen TV guide, I was sure this would not be great. Poorly put together with some really average CGI, it was only (slightly) saved (for me) by the performance of Tom Skerritt as Simon Abernathy (Frank's father), he held the thing together. Even the presence of Summer Glau as Frank's daughter, Jack (silly name for a girl, I know) didn't make it any better. I'll give honourable mentions to; Vincent Ventresca as Dr. Frank Abernathy, Cole Williams as Squirrelly, Charles Carroll as Sheriff Marion Morrison (that's John Wayne's real name for those that don't know), Leila Arcieri as Agent Powers and Marcus Lyle Brown as Agent Whitaker.

For a script that was meant to be playing for laughs, I found very little to laugh about. To say the jokes were (for the most part) pretty lame would be putting it mildly. The plot was all over the place, there were holes in it you could drive a truck through… and at one point I think they did! It did try to rally at one point and almost grabbed my attention, but then lapsed back into banality yet again… Sadly. NOT RECOMMENDED, but the good films will look all the better for seeing it.

My score: 3.8/10

IMDb Score: 3.8/10 (based on 1,533 votes at the time of going to press).

MetaScore: No Data: (Based on 0 critic reviews provided by Metacritic.com at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes 'Tomatometer' Score: No Score Yet… (based on 1 reviews counted at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes 'Audience' Score: 18/100 'Liked It' (based on 838 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).

You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.

This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a great movie. I have long said SciFi Original is synonymous with "crap" when it comes to movies. They don't have a very good track record when it comes to movies, but I'm beginning to think that this one shows they know it.

The actors, mostly B-movie and TV types, with Summer Glau probably being the biggest name in it, aren't the worst actors SciFi has put in a movie. The writing actually has some quotable lines. The special effects are bad for modern era CGI, but we're talking about a low budget horror film. We've all seen them, and some of us actually enjoy them. So, if you like the corniness of so many horror films from the 50s and 60s, or maybe the camp of the Killer Tomatoes series or perhaps Tremors, you will actually enjoy this movie.

If you're looking for a movie to take your mind off life for an hour and a half, you could do a lot worse than Mammoth. OK, you could also do a lot better but this film doesn't pretend to be anything other than a low-budget cheesy horror.

In fact, part of the charm of Mammoth was that everyone had their tongue firmly in their cheek making this film, especially the delightfully nerdy scientist played by Vincent Ventresca. The special effects are naff in the extreme and the dialogue totally contrived but that just made me chuckle rather than roll my eyes in frustration.

I guess it depends how you like your genres. If you liked Snakes on a Plane, then you may well like it. Don't expect too much from it and you might be pleasantly entertained.

I saw the last half of this movie on SciFi and then a few hours later, I saw the beginning when they replayed it. If I had seen it from the beginning, I would have been a lot more disappointed, because the opening sequence was amazing, and sadly, the rest of the film didn't quite measure up. But the opening? Great CGI effects giving way to traditional animation (of cave drawings) that gave us a taste of the backstory, with fun, appropriately theramin-heavy music - it could have been the opening to a theatrical film, it was just that good! I can tell what the director/writers/producers were going for with the rest of the film, with the over-the-top plot, characters, and humorous lines and references to classic 50s sci- fi schlock. But it just didn't quite come off. And for the hour that I saw of it, they could have benefited from a whole lot more mammoth, since that IS the title. Oh well. I bet the creators do better next time.