Virus

🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿

🎙️ EPISODE 623: 12.20.22 I can't get myself in the mindset of a mainstream critic in the year 1999. I can barely get myself into the mindset of a mainstream moviegoer, and — at age 18 — I was one! Sam Mendes and Kevin Spacey swept three of the four major Oscar categories with American Beauty. The top three grossing film were the head-scratching trio of Star Wars: Episode I ‑ The Phantom Menace, The Sixth Sense, and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. An original movie about a sentient alien A.I. taking over an abandoned Russian research ship in the middle of the ocean really never stood a chance during this strange and scattered moment in time. But unlike the Stars Wars reboot, Virus holds up because it eschewed the trendy early CGI (for the most part) in favor of a wonderful practical FX and character design. I mean look at this rad shit...

It is pretty amazing! The story is ludicrous and mostly dumb but its narrative works well , contained in this one setting (the massive ocean-liner) as a means for displaying famed visual artist turned director John Bruno's amazing work. To be honest, I actually think the concept for the plot is pretty strong, but it gets lost in some terrible (Baldwin) and some phoned-in (Sutherland and his comically inconsistent accent) acting performances in addition to the over-the-top, nearly nonstop action. However, its the latter which has made this film a cult classic to the extent that it is. The action is relentless. Once it kicks in, its essentially over an hour of this crew (led by the great Jamie Lee Curtis and some solid character actors) firing machine guns, uzis and eventually even a rocket launcher at these cyborgs and mutant robots. It's so fun. But on the dawn of Y2K, I guess audiences and critics alike weren't interested in this kind of fun. And that's a damn shame.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 622 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 624 ⫸

---

Virus is a 1999 science fiction horror film directed by visual effects artist John Bruno and starring Jamie Lee Curtis, William Baldwin and Donald Sutherland. Based on the comic book of the same name by Chuck Pfarrer, it tells the story of a ship beset by a malevolent extraterrestrial entity that seeks to turn humanity into cyborg slaves. The film was promoted with a line of action figures and a tie-in video game. It turned out to be a critical and commercial flop, but over time gained a cult following. It was released on January 15, 1999.