The Hive

Bad, bad, bad. And worse!

This flimsy piece of Sci-Fi wish-wash is so contemptuously awful, I could not suffer to watch it all. After forty minutes of mind-numbing banality, I was forced to switch it off.

So where did it go wrong? My timer indicated 00:00:30. For a start the acting was so lame, in some scenes (notably the party scene,) not even a vet could have saved it.

The CGI was quite possibly the worst set of special effects ever to have inflicted itself onto my screen. Perhaps if I'd watched it through a woolly sock after rubbing olbas oil into my eyeballs it might have looked half decent, but I'm not going to give it the satisfaction.

The plot I can't really comment on as I was fortunate enough to stop it in its tracks. However, I can say that the first forty minutes that I did see must have been written on the back of a napkin, and then accidentally washed.

The script must have been on the other side. It was so jam-packed with pointless rhetoric and hackneyed clichés that the six or seven lines that did try to drive the plot must have had delusions of adequacy.

My verdict: Maybe this was meant for the ants to enjoy.

That said, though, if I was an ant, I'd rather find a magnifying glass on a sunny day.

I don't know why I keep attempting to watch a film made by the Sci-Fi network. Somehow, I think that just maybe this one will be decent. But, as usual, it sucks! When will I learn? You can bet that when you hear the announcement, "An original Sci-Fi film" it will be the usual lame story line. Some painfully bad CGI creation of a killer creature (super sized snakes and reptiles seem to be the favorites) attacking a group isolated, stranded idiots. And when I say "painfully bad CGI", it truly is painful to watch. ("I confess, just turn the channel!") I've seen better effects from the original Nintendo games! What I find even sadder is that some of the stars who sign up for these catastrophes are ones that "I thought" were on the fast track to great careers. Actors like, Stephen Baldwin, Michael Pare, Casper Van Dien & Dean Cane to name a few seem to keep reappearing in these features. I like to think that maybe they new managers or that there is just no quality work going on.

But, you can always count on the Sci-Fi channel to be in production of another low budget cookie cutter flick. I guess you gotta take what work you can get. Unfortunately, I believe that starring in these films is just going to keep you starring in these films. So you can kiss the Oscar goodbye!!!! "The Night of the Lepus", now there's a good cheesy I could enjoy over and over again. And that starred Janet Leigh, Deforest Kelly and Stuart Whitman.....what bet did they lose?

This is a ridiculous albeit somewhat compelling low-budget effort at an "eco-disaster" movie. From the title you might imagine that it revolves around bees, but it is in fact about ant colonies which have developed advanced intelligence and super-powers as a result of alien intervention. The plot is mostly predictable although it does include some bizarre twists, the acting is mediocre and the special effects are not so special. That said, the premise is quite interesting - we know that ants communicate in some way and work together, but what if they got really clever? It is a mixture of "The Naked Jungle" (an oldie but goodie with Charlton Heston having to deal with "the marabunta") and "Phase IV", both of which are far better films.

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).

I'm giving this a 5 coz it did make me laugh out loud on a number of occasions.

The basic plot, killer ants. It sounded like the kind of cheap sci-fi B-movie I like, so I though I would watch it. And I was entertained for all the wrong reasons.

The acting was OK, not the worst I've seen, but I've seen a LOT better. The story was ridiculous! I mean, even to the point where; you know in Bond movies, how the bad guys does a plot exposition to Bond? Well, the 'ants' do this to the good guys of the movie...yes, the 'ants' actually tell the humans what they want! I'll not tell you how, but it is ridiculous! It made me laugh out loud.

The direction was taken from the 'how to film every camera cliché in the book' school of filming.

The end was really disappointing. They try to have a 'twist' ending, but it's more of a 'we couldn't be bothered to think of anything, so we'll resort to an obvious answer' ending.

After I saw this, I read a review that said this film has 'credibility', lol, really, it's only credible if you've never seen the 'moving image' before. If you like B-movies, that make you laugh, then you will enjoy this. If you're looking for a sci-fi/horror/action film, then this isn't for you.