Virus
Virus
R | 14 January 1999 (USA)
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When the crew of an American tugboat boards an abandoned Russian research vessel, the alien life form aboard regards them as a virus which must be destroyed.

Reviews
Stometer

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Murphy Howard

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

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Kirandeep Yoder

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

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Kaelan Mccaffrey

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

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utgard14

Decent sci-fi horror/thriller. OK, it's not exceptional in any way but it's also not the steaming pile of poo that its rating here would suggest. I was expecting it to be a real stinker judging by some of the reviews I've read. On the contrary, it was a perfectly watchable movie of its type. Entertaining to a small degree but never dull. The cast isn't bad. Jamie Lee Curtis is the best of the lot. Donald Sutherland hams it up some with a silly Lucky Charms accent. I ask you though -- in what way is that not fun? Maybe people hate it because it has a "dumb action movie" quality about it. Sci-fi fans can be a prickly sort sometimes.

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wes-connors

As a typhoon approaches the South Pacific, some mysterious outer space force attacks a Russian "missile and satellite tracking" ship. Nearby, a small America tugboat barely weathers the storm. Led by steadfast navigator Jamie Lee Curtis (as Kelly "Kit" Foster) and handsome engineer William Baldwin (as Steve Baker), the crew barely makes it into the eye of the storm. Hoping to make repairs, they instead encounter and board the Russian ship, which is seemingly deserted. The huge vessel has 42 labs and is valuable as a salvage ship. If no Russian personnel survive, those returning the ship will be paid millions of dollars. After losing his tugboat's cargo, heavily-accented Captain Donald Sutherland (as Robert Everton) wants to collect the cash. Naturally, he hopes to find no survivors. This puts him at odds with attractive scientist Joanna Pacula (as Nadia Vinogradova)...Special effects wizard John Bruno directs this Dark Horse comic book adaptation. Not surprisingly, "Virus" is a special effects movie. It starts off with an attack and storm. The subsequent, short characterization period really doesn't endear us to the cast, who seem very stereotypical. We should have a much stronger time getting to know the characters. That we may not want to know them is another problem. Also, there is also no real suspense as things immediately get rough for the crew; consequently, there is little time to dread the villainous presence or care what it kills. An ambiguous ending jolt seems to be setting up a possible sequel, but we were probably better off letting this "Virus" run its course.***** Virus (1/15/99) John Bruno ~ Jamie Lee Curtis, William Baldwin, Donald Sutherland, Joanna Pacula

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Prismark10

Virus is based on a Dark Horse comic book. It has a lot of behind the scenes talent such as Gale Anne Hurd (Terminator/Aliens), director John Bruno is an Oscar winner for visual effects for The Abyss and also did the VFX for Terminator 2, Titanic amongst other films.It is no surprise then that the film rips off many of these films in the genre especially as it becomes Aliens meets Robocop meets Terminator as an electrical based alien life form that views humans as a virus, only useful as spare parts and slowly converts the humans into cyborgs.The film starts off in a Russian space station before setting in a Russian ship. Our heroine is Jamie Lee Curtis a navigator in a tugboat with uninsured cargo destroyed in a typhoon. The salty captain of the ship, is mean, a drunkard and on the verge of catastrophic failure. He is played by Donald Sutherland. They stumble on the now abandoned Russian ship and want to take it as valuable salvage before they realise something else is also aboard.Lee Curtis shows a lot of spirit, she is assisted by a bland William Baldwin. Sutherland is the hissable villain, a mixture of Captain Hook and Quint from Jaws. The special effects are very good but the script is a let down and the film comes across as dull.

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mysteryclarke

This review contains spoilers - but it's like a turd gets spoiled by running over it on a skateboard. No great tragedy.Adequate budget, admirable cast, appalling script. Such a wasted opportunity - none of the characters have any consistency, their relationships are never explained or explored and every opportunity for a cheap shock is shamelessly exploited with very minimal effect. At no point did I feel empathy for any of the characters and instead I was vaguely amused each time one of them dies. The cinematography is adequate and the performances of the cast are about as good as they could have been so I have given it 3/10 but by half-way through I was really just hoping it would end soon so I could do anything else instead.Why a research vessel is carrying surface to air missiles or has armouries bristling with bazookas and machine guns is never explained, nor is why the Russians are using a boat rather than a fixed-position land based facility to communicate with the MIR space station. A boat, I might add, that would have to be nearer America than Europe for the crews initial tug boat to have reached it. Why the sensible and sensitive daughter of an American Navy Admiral (as Jamie Lee Curtis' character claims to be) is involved with the unlikely crew combination on board the initial tug boat is also never explained, nor is why she has Thermionic grenades in her rucksack. Towards the end the tug boat crew suddenly seem very aware of the research vessels layout, facilities and capabilities and the final escape of two of the characters on a single-seater rocket powered ejector seat that has no flotation or survival equipment (one ejector seat for a crew of over 300?!) is the final laughable straw. Overall the film is pants. Poorly stitched pants, with a little skid-mark in them.

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