The Hive

The acting seemed okay as in I could believe they believed what they where saying. Often though what they said demonstrated a complete lack of basic science or what they had just said a few lines ago. Some kind of science adviser, even a kindergarten one, would have done wonders for the movie. Energy weapon versus chemical weapon, Endoskeleton versus exoskeleton, what a biological computer might look like and what it definitely would not look like. Keep in mind most of these guys are supposed to be highly educated. The Professor's role seemed contrary at every turn. He taught these people but can't seemed to address a simply first aide problem...? Really? I don't really understand what they were trying to do with the end though I would love to meet the writer just to find out how things could have gone so wrong. I think they were just going for "let's see how much we can cram in this!" The suits and guns were kinda cool. This goes in the category of if I could watch it again for the first time I probably would but would never watch it after that.

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.

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")

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).

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!