Locusts (2005)

In this made-for-TV sequel to Vampire Bats, Lucy Lawless returns as Dr. Maddy Rierdon, now a Department of Agriculture investigator, who has to deal with a large swarm of bioengineered locusts that is endangering her town.There are some average-rated action, including all the scenes of the investigations, locusts attacks and residents fleeing for their lives. A swarm of insects, at least for me, would always send chills down your spine and make you shiver. The special effects of the insects were actually pretty realistic at times, but very apparent CGI in most scenes.But, like the previous film, the acting the was pretty horrendous. Lawless pulled off her role quite professionally, but much of the other actors, especially that of the little girl, appeared to be giving half-hearted or less performances - no emotion, character development or screen presence. There are also some illogical plot-points, including the part where ***spoiler ahead*** Dr. Peter Axelrod (John Heard) goes out of the barn, into the insect swarm, to fiddle of some type of machine, where he meets his doom. I thought that scene was meant to be tragic, but distastefully done ***spoiler ends***. In addition, the direction of the plot was slow. But overall, it is a pretty predictable film - maybe a tad better than Vampire Bats, but definitely not much of a humdinger.Grade D

This couldn't be funnier, even if it had intended to be. It is a 21st century rendition of those awful 1950s drive-in fodder, supersized radioactive insect movies. It just doesn't know its a parody. It really thinks it's a serious movie. As a result, it has turned out much funnier than Date Movie, Epic Movie and Scary Movie, all the uninspired clones of the Zucker brothers' wonderfully screwy Airplane (Flying High down under) and Naked Gun flicks.Great sets, nice photography but the praise stops there. The script is stupid and the acting is atrocious. Grab snacks and laugh your head off. Lucy Lawless is a scientist battling swarms of carnivorous locust, a CYA secretary of agriculture and an army general eager to gas the bugs and most of America. All are of about equal intelligence. Well, maybe collectively the grasshoppers are smarter. Remarkable, given they are all stick-on props and CGI.BTW, the unintentional humour is so raucous I never pegged Xena until I came to IMDb. She isn't nearly so visually arresting out of leather. Her estranged boyfriend though, another scientist, is another matter. He could push this flick over with specialized audience niches. It was guffaw time for me when he walked into Command Central and was introduced as a leader in some sort of scientific field. Square jawed, wavy haired and such a caricature of handsome, you know he must have just come straight from his other job. As an underwear model.Low moments but big laughs: Every time Lucy jumps up and down like an 11-year-old trying to get the attention of a doubting bigwig. When the biggest mid-script plot turn is the "reveal" that Lucy is pregnant. Prime moment for a line something like, "You remember that night. You came straight home after shooting the g-string commercials and you were unstoppable." No matter; viewers are already laughing so hard they'd have missed the line.Oh yes, and those amazing CGI effects! Really love the computer simulations of the USA at Command Central where the dark swarms of dots (representing the locusts, ya know) spread across several states as fast as spilled water covers a granite counter top.Enough already. You get it. Do NOT approach this as serious entertainment.Oh, I forgot. There is one good performance. It's Mike Farrell (B.J. Hunnicutt on M*A*S*H) as a man outstanding in his field. You got it; a farmer. That's cuz the locusts attack all the crops in Midwestern America. Those good, honest folk don't deserve such diss.

"Locusts!" is an all right bug horror film.**SPOILERS**After hearing of illegal experiments in an USA research facility, Maddy Rierdon (Lucy Lawless) orders the termination of the experiment: genetically bred locusts. Even though they are careful not to let them loose, a few accidentally get freed and head out into the wild. The former creator, Dr. Peter Axelrod, (John Heard) discovers the colony of locusts have invaded when he finds them attacking a school bus with his daughter on board. He quickly notifies Maddy and she arrives on the spot. After the locusts attack both planes and livestock, Maddy and her husband Dan Dryer (Dylan Neal) come together with Dr. Axelrod and the military to find a way of destroying the locusts before they harvest the nation's and the world's food supply.The Good News: The main reason why this is a good bug movie is mainly the creation of the locusts themselves. These things look absolutely convincing, and I genuinely thought these were trained locusts from time to time. They look real, they behaved real, and they moved convincingly. Scenes of them in a giant swarm descending on a building or object with people trapped inside trying to fight off the individual locusts provide the best suspense scenes of the film. Watching the giant swarm completely cover a building as the people trapped inside scream frantically to ward off the invaders, are a great sight. The ending of the film was also pretty cool, straight out of a Fifties giant-monster-on-the-loose film. This is the general vibe you get from watching it: the creatures are accidentally created, it leaves it's mark as it travels across the states, the emergence in a large metropolitan area, and the last-second ditch of a deadly plan to exterminate the threat with a new one that just might work.The Bad News: Too much of this film is sentimental bull that at certain points I wanted the locusts to just go on a rampage and kill everybody in the film. We get at least three conversations on a private nature with Maddy and Dan that just became too much after a while. None of them have any real impact on the plot, and are inserted to make us sympathize with them. I never did sympathize with them and I don't feel too bad this feeling. It never was the right thing to empathize, since it is a risky thing to do: either it works and you really feel for the character and the situation, or you don't feel anything because they're gonna live at the end anyway. This is a precarious situation, and here, because this certain characteristic is revealed very early on in the film, it destroys whatever potent revelation its discovery will be later on. This is simply so miscalculated that I almost hate this film because of it. On top of this, there are so few deaths in the film that I had to fast forward through a large part of the film to just get to the action scenes, and the sad part is, I didn't miss any major plot point in doing so. The bugs did look very cool: they should've been showcased more and make the movie a little bit more entertaining.The Final Verdict: With a part that nearly destroys whatever potential the film had going for it, I have a hard time recommending this to horror fans. Bug film aficionados and Sci-Fi fans will be more pleased with it, but I have a hard time seeing true horror fans liking this film. Use extreme caution.Rated PG-13: Violence, some Language, and children in jeopardy.

Wow. Nice concept, but... terrible dialog throughout most of it. A lot of the CG seriously sucked and most of the acting was surprisingly disappointing. All in all, this movie was good for a few laughs, just like most b-movies are.One thing stood out though... Stacey, the office birthday girl. What in heaven's name was some one of her calibur doing in a low budget cheese fest like this?! Despite some of the silly dialog ("...and a bag of chips."), she was believable as her character and shined through. That was the best acting in the entire movie! Can you believe this is the same girl who played the mentally challenged girl in "Heart of the Storm"?! At the pace she is going, Azure Dawn will be a household name in the not too distant future.