Syfy Trash: The Hive

I prefaced this review by stating that The Hive is the far less subtle version of Phase IV- this is true. It works upon the same basic idea, only never bothering to try and explain it (even compared to the vague explanation given in Phase IV). On top of that, they go completely 'over the top' in every single possible way- the acting, the effects, etc. You think that I am exaggerating? Read my review and find out. This is...

The Hive

The movie begins hard and fast with a swarm of ants attacking a village. It is right here that we learn that the movie is a tad low-budget. The ants are basically a colored blob of pixels. Yeah, get used to it. An elite team of bug-killers...heh...named Thorax is called in to stop the tide of bugs. They do it with- I shit you not- sonic laser guns that create tiny sonic booms when they hit the ground. Seriously, does bug spray not work in movies? They manage to stave off an attack by a large group of them and the team re-groups. This movie is just getting started though.

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Incidentally, this movie is part of the 'Maneater Series' of direct-to-video movies that includes Blood Monkey, Maneater (this seems obvious) and Grizzly Rage. Is this really a series? No. It is just a flimsy pretense to tie together a bunch of random 'killer animal' films, now with crappy CG. I just thought that you should know that.

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The team goes out the next day in their HAZMAT suits and has their tech girl stay behind to talk to them through a Walkie Talkie when dramatic things happen. Oh, they sure do. The group splits up- always good when battling swarms of things- and a pair of them runs into serious trouble. By the way, one of the two is played by Tom Wopat, one of the two guys from The Dukes of Hazard. No, he's not the guy from Smallville; he's the one did nothing. The ants form a chain and strike them with a fist. No, really. In spite of their super-fancy suits, one of the ants crawls in Tom's ear. An actual subplot revolves around the insect biting at his nerve endings. What does it accomplish? Nothing.

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In the wake of the revelation that red ants and black ants are working together (a biological impossibility), the founder of Thorax calls in an entomologist who is, wait for it, his ex-girlfriend. They tease a love sub-plot, but it falls by the side pretty quickly. What we get instead is much more interesting and much less plausible. The ants attack again and take out more people with their CG army. They even take time to save a single child- a silly thing amongst the hundreds of dead shown on screen. Our heroes discover that the ants are communicating through symbols in the grass and decide to talk to them. This leads to this infamous line- "We do not negotiate with ants!" The two leads run off anyways and discover the ants have much more than a big hill in the dirt. No, they have...

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AN ANT COMPUTER!

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I am 100% not kidding you. The ants have formed a computer with their body and learned to communicate through a form of Hieroglyphics. This is just...wow. Unfortunately, Mr. Wopat has gone crazy from having an ant eat away at his brain and tries to kill the super insects. This leads the ants to retaliate by forming...a giant ant made out of other ants. "Words fail me, gentlemen." The whole thing disintegrates into running, shooting and one big explosion. The ants are gone...for now. But what have we really learned? How about 'use bug spray to kill ants next time.' Trust me, it works!

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This movie is ridiculous and entertaining, in that order. The movie is just utter crap, but played completely straight. On top of that, they have wooden actors and decide to turn the brown-haired guy from Dukes into a crazy rebel. Yeah, he definitely has the range for it. The special effects look really dumb most of the time, but are at least entertaining. They don't overdo the whole ant swarm thing like some others movies have, but make it fresh in silly ways. You have not lived until you have seen someone try to rationalize an ant computer without laughing. That's all I need to say, really.

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Despite my pleas, they released the third Eko Eko Azarack movie. Now you get to suffer with me. Stay tuned...