A Major Disappointment

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

We start out with a tunnel being built under a mountain, a train is going to run through it, drastically reducing travel time from point A to point B. The tunnel is half done, and a group of dignitaries rides the first train out to the midpoint, as the company honchos hit them up for more money. But they're attacked by some sort of unseen critters, ripped to shreds! It's actually quite nicely done.Next, cut to the folks who are going to investigate this mysterious slaughter. They contact the guy who's in charge of engineering the tunnel, and unlike the folks in just about every other crappy B-movie, he's actually an intelligent, helpful person who just wants to get this thing figured out so they can finish the tunnel. So these folks, along with a group of military guys and gals, get in an armored train and go into the tunnels, where they find giant bugs.What makes this so much better than the average B-movie is that the characters are quite well done: fairly likable, they act in a logical manner and don't spend the whole time fighting with each other. What a startling break with cliché! The atmosphere in the tunnel is also done really well, you get a sense of claustrophobia as they're all trapped with the bugs, walking down hallways with lots of dark corners, etc. They set up an electric fence to keep the bugs at bay, and it's actually fairly believable as the bugs keep testing the fence and the military folks tensely stand by with machine guns at the ready.Towards the end you get the usual big battle with the head bug; the special effects are cheesy but okay. Overall, this is a decidedly above average low budget affair, one of my favorites. Much better than other higher budget affairs like "Relic".

Seriously folks, if this movie was touted and marketed as a tongue in cheek satire of the 'Alien' franchise and they amended the movie so ever slightly - it would be hilarious. However, the producers; God love 'em, tried in vain for a serious horror sci-fi and failed in monumental proportions.Where do we start?? Nasty supposedly dormant 65 million year old bugs come to life in a subway. A terrible explanation of why the construction crew did not get attacked ... well leave that alone and utterly suspend disbelief... and not for the first time!!It is so obvious that the this movie was influenced extremely heavy by the 'Alien' franchise, and throw in a bit of 'Mimic' for good measure.. so the similarities??(1) Aliens had the colonial Marines, Bugs have the S.W.A.T. (2) The S.W.A.T. mirror the Marines counterparts as well- Hudson, Hicks, Vasquez, Drake et al (3) Virtual copy of dialogue, death scenes - but VERY poorly done. (4) Alien; drones and Queen... yep same for Bugs. (5) Same corporate bad guy putting spanner in works... meets same demise!! (6) Ripley wannabee in the shape of C.D.C lady. (7) Poor attempt at copying the cinematography from 'Alien3' for Bugs sight. (8) Bug sounds, death knells, disintegration shots VERY similar to 'Aliens' (9) 'Can't afford to let even one of those...'and... the pièce de résistance .. and I wish I was joking(10) 'Aliens'; Ripley takes on the Queen with that way cool Loader... 'Bugs'; Takes on the Queen with, I kid you not, a fork lift!!Seriously, 'IF' for some extraordinarily torturous reason you wish to actively seek this movie out to view it, approach it as a violent satirical comedy/parody of 'Alien'. Even though I could safely disclose the ending of Bugs due to 'Contains Spoilers'... I can't. Let's just say that the writers/producers/director have no idea what constitutes a proved and successful ending to a horror movie. You have been warned... *grins*

Mostly bad acting, mostly bad CGI effects, and a trite plot that's been done to death combine to make a movie that was almost unbearable for me even as background noise while I worked on the computer.Construction of a new subway line breaches the lair of a hive of previously unknown species, i.e. giant - you guessed it - bugs. If you've seen any of the awful to great movies that employ this plot device, then you have little reason to give this movie a glance other than the different actors and a few gore effects that are done reasonably well. Some scenes will leave you scratching your head, though.At one point people in a train car are ripped apart by sometimes invisible creatures who's partial absence must be due to not having enough budget to finish all the CGI shots. In another scene, someone makes an heroic stance only to be killed by a falling section of chain-link fence.2/10 for better-than-average gore effects but not much else.

Don't dismiss this one out of hand. Sure, it's not top drawer in the giant-insect-threat-to-humanity genre. But let's not be unfair, considering the slot it's aiming for. I don't think you should judge a film of this type as if it could make it as a first-run film in movie theaters. This is a TV Sci-Fi channel entertainment. I thought the effects were pretty darn good, and the first 15 to 20 minutes set up the movie with surprising style. When the subway car that had all the rich dignitaries rolls into the station after suffering a major attack--that's a great scene with real visual flair. Folks, what do we really want in one of these? A lot of giant insects, a troop of rough and ready combat types that all get picked off over time without doing really, really stupid things, the tiresome polluter-real estate tycoon-arrogant scientist getting his just deserts at the end, and a couple brave and true folk surviving. Give this one a chance!