VIRUS (1999) - **1/2

Ever see a movie in theatres that you know you saw, but don't remember anything else?

Well, that's my story with VIRUS back in the day, a major box-office flop that star Jamie Lee Curtis once called the worst movie she ever acted in, which considering that she also did z-slasher TERROR TRAIN, the feel-bad holiday flick CHRISTMAS WITH THE KRANKS, and that horrific cameo in HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION....wow.

But having bought this at the DVD Bargain Bin at Ingles for $3, I think she's totally wrong. Unlike those pictures I've just mentioned, VIRUS is actually sort of competent. I'm not saying that its good or even decent but its perhaps as good of a "creature feature" can be in ripping off better films like John Carpenter's THE THING, James Cameron's ALIENS, and Ridley Scott's ALIEN in dotting the "i"s and crossing the "t"s of the formula from those flicks without bringing anything new to the table.

It's like a well-written plagiarized term paper. It's the SUDDEN DEATH for the Hollywood monster movie. It's that nice knock-off Rolex you bought on the street for $30. It's a good Sci-Fi Channel Movie of the Week in another dimension, but in ours it escaped television and someone at Universal Pictures was stupid enough to sink $75 million into it.

VIRUS opens with an electric storm from space getting transmitted to a Russian scientific ship in the south Pacific, and the comrades don't fare well. Cut to a week later, and a shipping barge happens upon the ship, dead in the water and deserted (ALIEN). Since this crew lost their cargo, they figure they can salvage a payday from this ghost boat. Though I doubt Russia will want to buy back a ship infested with killer robots. I mean even if they wanted to, could they afford it? Go ask China for a loan.

They get jumped by an mentally-squared survivor (ALIENS), but they all try to get the hell of the boat and stop this alien "virus" from spreading to the rest of Earth (THE THING). Captain Donald Sutherland though is the douchebag who impedes the heroes on both goals (ALIEN/ALIENS) and the heroine has a one-on-one confrontation with the head robot (ALIENS) and there's a giant-ass explosion by the end (All 3 movies).

Again, if you seen those movies, you've seen this one already....but I must say that I sort of feel bad for director John Bruno. With such material, some filmmakers just don't bother in trying to even create tension or fear. For example, DEEP RISING was released a year earlier and has practically the exact same plot, ripped off the same great films, which also involves a giant ship in the seas, except its sea creatures instead of robots. Perhaps a reason why some geeks like RISING is that Stephen Sommers (yes, director of VAN HELSING) simply Kraft Cheese the whole thing, i.e. "We know its stupid, and you're stupid for liking it."

But I give VIRUS the edge of RISING in that career FX-worker Bruno really tries his best to make us jump in spite of the fact that a filmphile like me could practically predict when they would happen, and you know what? He succeeded once, and I won't say in which scene, but its one of three reasons why VIRUS is watchable.

The second is how Bruno actually relies for the most part on animatronics and old school FX for the deadly electronic creatures, which was nice in the late 1990s when CGI was already greatly abused this side of Elizabeth Smart. Too bad the few CGI shots we get in this flick is the worst effects Hollywood money could be wasted on. It's not unfortunate I guess that Bruno hasn't directed a studio movie since then, but there are much worse shooters still employed. Right Rob Cohen?

Third.....actually, I was wrong about VIRUS in having any new ideas. A nice concept wasted is.....get ready for it.....Zombie Robots.

Zombie Robots!

To be fair, even this isn't original. The z-schlock MOONTRAP produced a decade earlier did this too, though technically those bodies retooled by evil machines as cyborgs are simply glorified jackets, so I guess VIRUS did this one first....maybe. Funny enough, the guy who wrote VIRUS also wrote another forgettable by-the-numbers flop involving stalking robots in RED PLANET.

There are many things I could complain and nitpick this movie over. If the virus itself is electronic in nature, why the hell does it need to type on a computer keyboard to design the robots? Couldn't it simply get inside that comp and do it without a keyboard? Better yet...what about the Internet? Maybe this film was produced before Wi-Fi, I'm not sure, but I sure know that cell phones were. Yeah Mr. Virus, you sure are incredibly backwards for an electronic life form. Retard.

Also, when the virus tortures Curtis for information, why not simply kill her? I mean, they already absorbed data from the other dead converted into zombie robots, so why bother asking her? Why didn't the writers give crazy Sutherland something to have fun to work with for the paycheck instead of looking like he would rather watch paint dry? Why is the lead male hero is William "Offered after Alec and Stephen declined" Baldwin? Why did VIRUS have to resort to the lamest hack horror trick of them all in ending with a jump scare? Name the last movie besides CARRIE that made that gimmick work.

Yet with 3 dollars, I could have donated it to help fund literacy programs or get food for starving children in Africa, but instead I bought VIRUS. Sorry hungry kids who can't read, but it was worth the money...but that's about it.