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Scorpius Gigantus
R1 - America - Buena Vista Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak and Tom Williams (31st July 2006). |
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The Film
 Generally, a film like Scorpius Gigantus is assumed to have been created with the intent to create something not actually good; perhaps even so-bad-it’s-good. It is therefore a great shame that director Tommy Withrow‘s movie fails to reach even this lofty aspiration. Even the inimitable Jeff Fahey cannot save this film- shamelessly self-promoted as being in the tradition of Starship Troopers- from being anything more than a waste of time, effort, film and money. The plot, such as it is, begins with the Russian Mafia (!) hijacking an important U.S. military shipment- which turns out not to be uranium, as they’d hoped, but giant freaking insects. Which is something of a shame, as the mob is quickly eviscerated- but then, it’s the Russian Mafia, so the audience has little invested in their prolonged survival. We then discover that these giant bugs have been created by the lovely scientist Dr. Jane Preston (Jo Bourne-Taylor) who has not only made her way in the world despite the crippling handicap of incredible good looks, but also inadvertently created ten foot long carnivorous scorpion monsters in her search for a miracle vaccine. This is an enormous shame in some ways (ask the Russian Mafia) but it does initiate the dispatch of Major Nick Reynolds (Fahey) and his Alpha team- great news for those of us who woke up this morning and thought Man, what I’d really like to see today is some dumb-as-bricks jocks become a giant scorpion’s lunch. Reynolds’ team is supposed to be the best of the best- and in many ways they are, able to correct Dr. Preston in a few areas where her knowledge isn’t quite up to scratch, like simple evolution. As the team begins hunting the bug in eastern Europe (as the U.S. government thought Preston’s research was too dangerous to be conducted on home ground), we quickly learn that eastern Europe consists largely of one (1) Bulgarian warehouse and one (1) Bulgarian freighter, with no distance at all between the two- the distance covered by the amazing Alpha team through the cinematic magic of the edit. To be totally honest, it soon seems as if Maj. Reynolds would have been well served spending more time teaching his soldiers tactics and common sense (and perhaps recruiting more than a handful to hunt giant scorpions) rather than Darwinism, as the few troops he does have are dispatched easily, if a little remotely by the giant bugs. Although the bugs themselves are reasonably well animated and modeled, their interactions with the real life actors are patchy at best- a few shots of the monsters slashing away here and there is all we’re given. Naturally, this film has no artistic merit at all, so the question becomes whether or not it’s perhaps just a bit of fun. Sadly, the answer to that question is no. Unless you enjoy Mystery Science Theatre 3000-type movie viewings with your friends, there is little enjoyment to be gleaned from this Z-grade wonder- and if you do enjoy a bad movie you may still be disappointed since as I’ve mentioned, Scorpius Gigantus even falls short of the so-bad-it’s-good mark. In summary: Lots of blood, no nudity, horrendous dialogue, nonsensical plot, bad performances and dull monsters. Avoid this movie like the plague.
Video
Presented in a full frame ratio of 1.33:1 this transfer is about as good as TV-quality will buy you. The image is largely flat and lacks any definition and depth, I spotted some minor compression artefacts but realistically I doubt anyone will notice, considering there’s plenty of bad special effects to cringe at, colors are adequately vibrant but that can't go as far as saving this transfer. This is about as average as a transfer can get without sinking into just plain terrible. Consider this one on the borderline.
Audio
This film includes only one audio track, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track that pretty much matches the video, yet again as run-of-the-mill as they come. The dialogue for the most part is clear but for an action / sci-fi film this track lacks a considerable amount of depth. Buena Vista may as well have just released a stereo track. Optional subtitles are also included in English for the hearing impaired and Spanish.
Extras
Buena Vista Home Entertainment has included start-up trailers (which can be skipped by pressing Menu on your remote) for: - Dinocroc which runs for 30 seconds. - The Roger Corman Collection which runs for 1 minute 29 seconds. - Apocalypto which runs for 2 minutes 32 seconds. - An anti-piracy promo spot which runs for 47 seconds.
Overall
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