Virus

• Directed by John Bruno
• January 15, 1999
• Based on the 1992 comic book miniseries Virus written by Chuck Pfarrer and drawn by Howard Cobb

After outrunning a storm, a tugboat crew discovers a murderous energy based alien lifeform infesting the computers of a Russian research vessel.

Virus is pure trash. It is the cinematic equivalent of junk food. It is not an intellectual endeavor. And I’m just fine with that. As I have said before not everything in film needs to be art but everything in film needs to be entertaining. And this is entertaining even if it is a guilty pleasure.

Virus, based on a comic book from Dark Horse, reminds me a great deal of an earlier film called Moontrap starring the legendary Bruce Campbell and Pavel Chekov himself Walter Koenig. In Moontrap our heroes battled extra-terrestrial machines that for some reason needed organic components to use as spare parts. In Virus our heroes battle an extraterrestrial energy form which in order to exist in Earth’s atmosphere needs machines and for some reason organic components. Why in either case? I do not know but it makes for silly, gory fun.

You have two powerhouse talents starring in this: Donald Sutherland as the dangerous Capt. Everton and Jamie Lee Curtis as Kelly “Kit” Foster. I am not sure what kind of accent Donald Sutherland was going for but it’s bad. He’s a greedy captain whose poor decisions set the stage for the crew’s encounter with this alien life form.

Jamie Lee Curtis is 70% scream queen and 30% action heroine in the story. Her character of Kit waffles between screaming and needing help from William Baldwin’s Steve to being able to handle herself just enough that she doesn’t become spare parts for the alien.

The characters here just are. There is no development beyond Everton getting greedier and everybody getting more panicked. The relationship between Kit and Steve happens mostly because they are the only two people to survive the movie. Sorry for the spoiler there.

There are heavy practical facts but in 1999 that is about the only way you could bring these weird cyborg things to life. And that is part of its charm. I am a fan of practical effects and I love the work of these machines. The two coming together keeps me hooked. You certainly have limitations but some of the makeup and some of the other things they do are just pure magic to me. The best is Donald Sutherland when his character gets offed. The way they merge him with the machine and create the illusion parts is just fantastic.

Sometimes you just need a silly/fun/stupid movie and this is just that. It is a brainless space monster movie that works mostly because it was a relatively unique space monster despite my being convinced that it draws much of its inspiration from Moontrap.

The dialogue is crappy. The characters are caricatures. Everyone makes poor decisions. But as said before it is just mindless entertaining fun. It is a mild gore fest. The plot is predictable and the narrative advances usually after a firefight and the resolution comes at the hands of an explosion. Curtis herself hates this movie and I can certainly see why an artist might but as a viewer and enjoyer of bad movies that try to be good, this fun because they went for drek without thinking they were more than that.

Virus is not great film. It is an enjoyable trashy film though and if that is your thing then most certainly give this a look. But if you’re looking for something more highbrow then just keep moving.