Virus is a killer robot movie set mainly on board a Russian Military Ship. Whilst in contact with the Mir space station, an extraterrestrial virus infects Mir’s systems and sends itself down to the unfortunate Russian ship. The crew of an American Tug, the Sea Star, find the Russian boat deserted and board with the aim of acquiring it for salvage. However, they haven’t factored in extraterrestrial virus’s and soon will find themselves struggling to survive against a murderous intelligence hell bent on it’s own survival and man’s extermination.
This is pure Hollywood popcorn nonsense but it does have some damn cool robot/creature designs that help it a lot. Most of the characters are one dimensional and quite frankly they’re downright boring. It has a solid cast of actors including Donald Sutherland, Jamie Lee Curtis, William Baldwin, etc but none of them can make this movie into anything special. So what to say about Virus? Erm… Very little. Special effects are amazing and even though this movie is now 11 years old at the time of writing this review, it still looks great. The death scenes (well some of them) are good and there’s no short supply of gore.
The movies pacing is fast, it doesn’t over indulge in time wasting character expositions and non sense, it just goes straight for the jugular. The environment of the cargo freighter is very cramped and dreary and helps to add to the foreboding nature of the flick. Good stuff in this regard.
However, Virus is just too light a movie, it looks, feels and talks like a popcorn movie and that’s what it is. Disposable trash, but fun in some ways as well. I think the only people who will like Virus are killer robot fans or maybe gore hounds, there’s better horror out there and there’s certainly better sci-fi to be found. So am i gonna recommend it? No I’m not sadly, although like i said before if you enjoy watching killer robots doing their thing you’ll no doubt get some satisfaction from this movie, just not that much.
Movie Details
Director: John Bruno
Writers: Chuck Pfarrer, Dennis Feldman
Actors: Joanna Pacula, Marshall Bell, Sherman Augustus, Cliff Curtis
Release Year: 1999
Related Links: Amazon.co.uk — Amazon.com — http://www.virusthemovie.com/