Brilliant and touching

Am I Missing Something?

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I watched this one expecting to be nothing special, i was wrong. Proteus is a well made B movie creature feature which is a treat for those who enjoy retro FX, rubber monsters and slimy abominations. The whole movie absolutely might be heavily influenced (or ripped off) by Carpenter's The Thing, but this little fact doesn't hartly bother. I just enjoyed it, only thing that could bother some is that it takes a while before the action really starts. But it's worth it.

A group of drug smugglers (one of whom is an undercover cop) are stranded at sea when their yacht is burnt & sunk. Floating at sea in a lifeboat, they come across an oil rig. Boarding the rig, they find that it is deserted. But when one of their number disappears & they encounter survivors who act strangely before vanishing, they discover that the rig is actually a clandestine research facility that has been doing genetic engineering. And the kicker is that their latest project – an attempt to create a lifeform capable of instant evolution – has resulted in "Charlie", a shark-based polymorph capable of absorbing the bodies & memories of its victims then imitating them perfectly.Proteus is a silly attempt to create a cheap B-grade knockoff of the John Carpenter classic THE THING, only going a similar route to the 1989 film LEVIATHAN in basing its monster at sea. The only difference between Leviathan & Proteus is that the former managed to make the concept work (although not entirely convincingly) somewhat to make an entertainingly cheesy effort. Proteus, on the other hand, does not.The script was written by John Brosnan, a former film critic who had written two books where he criticised the genre for various faults. He also wrote a few genre novels, some of which became mounted as genre films in their own right (the silly monster flick Carnosaur was one of them). One of these novels, Slimer (which Brosnan wrote under a pseudonym) became the basis for Proteus. Helming the project was Bob Keen, a visual effects wizard who has done some really good effects work in the past – case in point being the effects in the original HELLRAISER.Proteus is, sad to say, a very poor attempt at copying Leviathan at a fraction of the budget. Both films transplanted The Thing into the sea (in Leviathan's case underwater) with varied results. They couldn't use the paranoia that their source did so they had to use much more action-packed stories to make up for it. Leviathan, while having some slightly cheesy effects, at least managed to compensate for it by having decent acting & a reasonably well-thought-out storyline. On the other hand, Proteus only manages to make a ham dinner out of a similar story. The acting is wooden enough to make a picnic table out of it. The plot consists of a bunch of idiots running around clueless while a polymorphic (shapeshifting) monster picks them off before confusing them by resembling their dead friends. The monster's biology is badly written – it somehow obtains a weakness for heroin which the human party have with them. Keen overdoes the monster's POV shots to the point of tedium, further weakening the suspense. And the late inclusion of Doug Bradley (Pinhead himself) as the businessman in control of the project doesn't do much – in fact very little – to recover the film's standing (although he does make the most of it). The monster's final form in the climax looks extremely cheesy & cheap-looking.

Basically a group is stranded on an abandoned oil rig where some testing has been going on and there's a monster. While that would be enough plot for people, the creators decided to add in some crappy drug smuggling story to it. It may give the group an excuse to be out there but, at the same time, it's pretty much unnecessary and leads to some mediocre subplots. My other issue is all the damn monster-vision shots. We have constant disruptions where we see everything through a blurry (green or red) lens moving quickly. To make it worse, half the time the monster isn't even doing anything! It's just running around, not interacting with the group or anything else. Plus, in the interests of being confusing, we'll occasionally catch glimpses of puddles of organic crap appearing and then transforming yet predictably none of the characters see this plus nobody ever seems to hear anything (an aggravating trend).Finally somebody is grabbed then, while tracking them, they find an old scientist who tells them they're in danger and they should leave. He then promptly vanishes from a locked room. The story proceeds to get weirder from there. However, it never really gets good. The setting is great, though, and I like the concept. Some of the effects are really neat while others... well, not so much. I love the monster's true form. At the same time so much of the movie just isn't worthwhile and there are just so many pointless moments. And while the ending does help salvage other parts of the film, the whole thing feels like a half-rate rendition of The Thing.Also, the title is a reference to a Greek mythological shapeshifter.

Credit were credit is due, CRAIG FAIRBRASS is certainly the 'BRITISH BULLDOG' as far as UK movies are concerned. You can't say, he doesn't try. And he's certainly here to stay, i just wish someone would have the ideal script to match his (if anything) enthusiasm. Fairbrass is certainly the UK's STEVEN SEAGAL/STALLONE (hell, even SCHWARZENEGGER!) but unless the UK stops putting out cack period costume dramas or rom-coms every five seconds, we could be losing the heir to a revival in UK action movies. Can you imagine if DARREN WARD (director of the hyper-violent/energetic 'SUDDEN FURY', had a biggish budget, and a cast that at least started with Fairbrass. We'd definitely have something better than this. But as it is, PROTEUS is an OK-ish ALIEN clone (with hints of 'THE THING') set on an (seemingly) abandoned oil-rig. Six drug runners find their boat on fire, and have to rough it in a life raft. All looks bad, until that is, they come across a oil-rig, that's apparently being used as a research lab, looking into experimenting with shark DNA (shades of the later DEEP BLUE SEA, anyone?) Of course you can guess the rest, as one by one, our protagonists get bumped off, by some unknown creature. Leaving Fairbrass to square up to a pretty original (if anything) looking monster.PROTEUS, is a flawed film, on a shoe-string budget, but it does have one or two effective scares, and passable gore (given the directors background!)On a similar vein to Norman J Warren's INSEMINOID or the more recent (lottery funded) LIGHTHOUSE, in terms of budget, plot development and general overall appearance. I only hope that Fairbrass get's the UK movies he deserves however, because our loss, could be America's gain.5 out of 10