The "Critters" movie franchise runs out of juice and hits a creative dead end with the last and lamest entry in the series. Completely bereft of the sharp sardonic wit and crackling vitality which made the first one so much fun, this totally pedestrian affair offers yet another tepid rehash of "Alien" with only a couple of Crites terrorizing a handful of folks on a rundown space station in 2045. Director Rupert Harvey, working from a drab and by-the-numbers script written by Joseph Lyle and David J. Schow, lets the story plod along at an agonizingly gradual pace and crucially fails to generate any much-needed tension or energy. Worse yet, the ferocious and voracious furballs don't even pop up until halfway through the picture and are given precious little to do. Moreover, the infrequent attack set pieces are flatly staged and don't deliver much in the way of gore or scares and the overly gloomy and humorless tone sucks all the joy and entertainment value from the movie. The folks responsible for this clunker make another big mistake by turning intergalactic bounty hunter Ug (an underused Terrence Mann) into a bad guy. Thomas L. Callaway's murky cinematography gives this flick an unattractively dim and muddy look. Peter Manning Robinson's strangely twangy and harmonic countryish score seems painfully out of place. On the plus side, the cast do what they can with the lackluster material: the always dependable Brad Dourif provides some life and brings a quirky charm to his portrayal of the sarcastic Al Bert, Don Opper is both amusing and amiable as the bumbling Charlie McFadden, a pre-stardom Angela Bassett does well as token no-nonsense tough babe Fran, and Paul Whitthorne ain't half bad as the likable and resourceful Rick. Cult siren Martine Beswick provides the sultry voice of glitchy computer Angela. An extremely insipid and instantly forgettable wash-out.
Review of Critters 4
