That’s what happened to me tonight. And with a Sci-Fi Channel Original flick. Actually, before we get to the movie, I’d like to take a moment to state that one of the first movies broadcast under the Sci-Fi Channel Original moniker was the leg-humpingly awesome Dog Soldiers. Granted, that was before they started making their own movies for the DTV market. Still, my point is that the masthead wasn’t always the tombstone of good taste and quality that it is today. Okay, I’ve wasted enough time talking about rocking chairs and defending something that is, for all intents and purposes, indefensible. On to the movie.

This thing slams you into the action full-bore. The first thing you see in the movie is three people running from a Komodo dragon. Then there are two. Then the remaining two ditch the lizard and stop to rest at the edge of a lagoon, which happens to be the watering hole of a giant cobra. Then there was one.

SHIFT GEARS WITHOUT USING THE CLUTCH! Jerry Ryan and his trusty band of eco-activists, One Planet, have hired the services of one Captain Stoddard, an ex-military fishing guide (that is, he was military and is now a fishing guide, not he used to be a fishing guide for the military) living in the Solomon Islands, to take them to a small island in the chain that is being used for unspecified military experiments. But of course, since it’s government experiments, and they are eco-activists, they must by their very nature oppose said experiments, and try to stop them, even though they don’t have a fucking clue what they’re blundering into.

What they’re blundering into is an island full of 50-foot-long cobras and Komodo dragons (whose roar sounds something like a giant retard yelling), which have eaten their creators and run amok. Of course, once all the people were eaten, there wasn’t much for them to amok, so they were all very excited when some new people showed up to amok against.

Finding the military complex abandoned, they decide to do a little exploring when they run into a panicked Susan Richardson. They are decidedly unimpressed with her insistence that they leave the island, until one of the monster cobras eats their camera man in the front yard. Suddenly they’re a lot more interested in her flashback sequence. Her dad, William Richardson, was working on the poorly-named Project Carnivore – a series of experiments to create gigantic and fast-growing food plants to end world hunger. And then the gub’mint steps in and says, “We want you to explore the military applications of a serum that makes things huge. Here, play with these extremely dangerous lizards and snakes.” Because in the world this flick takes place in, Bert I. Gordon is president. Why Komodo dragons and cobras, you might ask? Well, aside from the fact that they look really cool when they’re 50 feet long and eating people, they are a)immune to most human diseases (true), and b)amphibious (um, no they’re not – there’s a difference between “amphibious” and “able to swim”, but the movie keeps on insisting, as the cobras seem to live mostly in the water).

Since the monsters got loose and ate everybody, General Bradley is concerned that his pet project has gotten out of hand and the mutation might spread, so now it’s a race against time, for those who manage not to be eaten, to get to the one helicopter in the center of the island before the whole place is napalmed into a barren rock.

If every movie the Sci-Fi Channel made was like this one, people may be less inclined to cringe at the phrase Sci-Fi Channel Original Picture. Okay, so most of them probably wouldn’t. But I would. This thing is a load of fun. It’s a good old-fashioned romp-em’ stomp-em’ (literally, in this case, the Komodo dragons’ favorite way of killing is stomping their victims into the ground before swallowing them) monster flick with no ambitions above its station, which is to deliver plenty of shots of people getting stomped on and eaten. The brief recon team vs. Komodo dragons sequence is alone worth the rental price. And, considering the title, there had to be at least one beast-on-beast battle. It’s a little underwhelming, and not really long enough, but it’s satisfactory under the circumstances, considering the movie was probably made in a week or two with cashed-in soda can money. The most damningly cheap thing about the movie is that, when the American military comes to blow up the island and Captain Stoddard’s boat, they fly in on interchangeable stock footage of Russian MiG-23 fighters with USSR flags plainly visible on the tail, and McDonald Douglas F4 Phantoms with Israeli flags. Is it really that hard to find stock footage of American fighter jets?

The real shocker is that even the human stuff is fun. I can’t remember the last movie I saw that had pistols capable of firing 30+ shots without reloading. The acting ranges from I-had-to-take-a-valium-just-to-make-it-to-the-set to please-don’t-let-my-family-see-me. The dialogue…oh, the dialogue is best of all. My two favorite bits are when Ryan, Stoddard, and the rest run into a scientist who gives a little more exposition before dying of Komodo dragon drool poisoning. Ryan the eco-activist wants to stop their trek to the helicopter to bury the guy, and Stoddard refuses, saying, “Don’t worry, Ryan, he’s biodegradable.” Later, Major Garber is questioning General Bradley’s decision to frag the entire island with the people still on it. Garber: “If the media find out we blew up that island with those people still on it, they’ll be calling for our heads.” Bradley: “If they find out we created an island full of giant monsters, what do you think they’ll do?” That last exchange was paraphrased, but you get the idea.

Sure the movie throws all the characters at you in a flurry in the first three minutes. Sure it’s ridiculous to think that a small Pacific island full of two dozen 50-foot super predators would be anything but a stench hazard within a couple of months once all the people were eaten and the monsters all killed each other and starved to death. Sure it has what my buddy Chad Plambeck over at 3 Beer Theater calls a “cheese dick ending”, where the supposedly dead biodegradable scientist, whose corpse has somehow survived a napalm carpet bombing, wakes up and shows his new lizard face to the camera. Sure the guns don’t need reloading and the dialogue is retarded and the stock footage fighter jets aren’t even from the right country. Sure it’s all those things. And you know what else it is? Fun.

H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. Rating

- It’s a great kettle o’ goodies!

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