Reviews

I don't get why so many are hating on this film in these reviews. It's a B creature film, come on. Set in a glimmering 1996 Chicago and its beautiful Field Museum of Natural History, it stars peak Tom Sizemore (Heat, Saving Private Ryan) as grizzled tough guy Chicago police lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta, and Adventures in Babysitting's Brenda (Penelope Ann Miller at the top of her 1990s hot minute) as pretty evolutionary biologist Dr. Margo Green, who team up to take on the mythical Kothoga - a terrible forest beast summoned into the Radwood era after an archeologist drinks the wrong soup while on a business trip to South America.

In able support, we have Clayton Rohner (Just One of the Guys) as D'Agosta's young protégé Detective Hollingsworth, and the late James Whitmore (Them) as Dr. Green's old kindly beloved mentor, Dr. Frock. This respectful nod to the 1954 classic was truly moving, and surely drew a long standing ovation in theaters from horror fans when the movie came out.

Other notable cast members include John Hughes mainstay Carl from the Breakfast Club (John Kapelos) as hapless Chicago cop Officer McNally and Chi Mui Lo of Vanishing Son fame as Dr. Green's scuzzball collegue Dr. Lee, who has his greedy eyes on stealing her grant, which she needs to keep herself and her staff employed.

The set up for the hijinks that follow is thin but gets us to where we need to be. Archaeologist John Whitney (Lewis Van Bergan from Pinnocho's Revenge) unwisely slugs down some witch's brew given to him while studying a tribe in South America. Why they gave him the stuff and what doing so was supposed to accomplish beyond creating an action movie is anyone's guess. But it doesn't matter I suppose.

What does matter is that the doomed Whitney somehow gets transported via ship back to the United States. After murdering and consuming the necessary parts of a few ship guards, he finds his way up to Lake Michigan, across to Chicago, and into the museum's perfect-for-the-job subterranean tunnel system.

More conveniently still, the museum is about to have a big gala for the city's coiffed elite, on whose philanthropy the museum depends for existence. And the Kothaga is decidedly in the building to make sure that existence is as short and nasty as possible.

The mysterious and disgusting murder of joint smoking security guard Jophrey Brown - who also bought the farm at the paws of a dinosaur just a few years prior in 1993's Jurassic Park FWIW - draws Detective D'Agosta and the CPD to the museum to investigate. The stage is then set for a rip roaring good time.

And a good time it is. The rest of the plot is straightforward. D'Agosta wants to cancel the big expensive shindig. Though Carl and his partner shot and killed a crazy homeless guy who clearly appears to be the guard's killer - pre body cam thankfully for the trigger happy Carl and his partner - D'Agosta's well honed and hard earned police instincts tell him that there is still trouble lurking in the museum's dark and dank tunnels.

However, the museum's director (the delightful Linda Hunt of NCIS LA), its jerky head of security (Thomas Ryan), and the mayor (Robert Lesser in an erie foretelling of Rahm Emanuel some 15 years before his election) are having none of it. They diss on D'Agosta's good judgment and tell him that this is an event which simply cannot be canceled, sorry. Push it and you're fired. D'Agosta is at least, however, allowed to have an entire team of heavily armed Chicago police officers present at the event. You know, just in case.

The stuffy gala is staged perfectly, with a realistic opulent high price per plate setting and a convincing and eloquently manicured crowd of Chicago's richest philanthropists. As they nosh on pricy d'oeuvre and rub elbows in polite small talk charged with import, the Kothaga, now apparently very smart (and very big due to eating a few hypothalamus), hacks the museum's security system and is able to kill the lights, activate the sprinkler system (??), and trap everybody inside by closing the museum's vault-like doors.

How a huge rage-filled quadrupedal made up of insect and reptilian DNA with clawed hands the diameter of large pizzas was able to deftly and quickly operate an undoubtedly not user friendly 1990s era computer system is not explained. Nor does it have to be. You just roll with it.

As you should. The ensuing mayhem is a treat. Cops, police dogs, antagonists, SWAT team guys, and many more are systematically dispatched with spectacular and gruesome abandon. And the sight of the impeccably dressed privileged one-percenters running around soaking wet, screaming, tripping down stairs, and getting face planted into revolving doors is delicious. All of the action is well choreographed and graphic.

In case anybody really wants to get into this film, I won't do a spoiler. The ending is a bit incredible, but suffice it to say that D'Agosta's tough police instincts and Dr. Green's looks and impeccable knowledge of DNA, computers, and flammable lab substances make for a good team here.

I really liked the movie overall. It is great to see many of these actors some 26 years later. Most of them are no longer widely active or, sadly, no longer with us. The cinematography is excellent, particularly the spectacular nighttime skyline shots of Chicago during the long ago Chicago Bulls' Last Dance era.

The plot is ridiculous, of course, but no more so than the 1950s B creature movies from which this film obviously draws its influence. And you do not, or certainly should not, go into a movie like this expecting documentary style realism.

If you are expecting an Academy Award winning drama, you'll be disappointed. But if you treat it like a modern (relatively) take on great classic creature/horror films like Them, The Thing from Another World, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the Fly, you will enjoy yourself.

Rancher Rory Calhoun (who will be familiar to horror fans as Vincent Smith from Motel Hell) is being eaten out of house and ranch by an infestation of rabbits. So he goes to his buddy, university president DeForest Kelly (Dr. McCoy of Star Trek fame) for help. Kelly recommends the services of the crack husband and wife biologist duo Stuart Whitman and the great Janet Leigh (who either really needed money or had a good sense of humor).

Instead of using harmful cyanide to kill the rabbits, the duo decide the best option will be to inject a substance which causes contagious and unknown genetic defects into one of the bunnies. Of course, this rabbit is immediately released into the wild after the two biologists fail in a criminally negligent manner to observe basic quarantine rules - which is ironically timely here in 2020. Next thing you know, we've got a heard of giant rabbits killing hapless town folk and expendable hired hands and just generally destroying everything in their path in a most disgusting fashion. These rabbits simply seem invincible to everything except for Janet Leigh's inexhaustible road flare.

But not to worry. Our heroes, whose safety is treated as paramount compared to the defenseless plebes murdered by the monsters, ultimately save the day in arguably the best movie ending involving railroad tracks since Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry. Of course, it's the only other movie ending involving railroad tracks that I can think of but still. They also apparently avoid prison time and a massive civil lawsuit for their grossly negligent actions.

The movie is utterly ridiculous, of course, but it is watchable as a B-horror film from the era if you are fan of these types of movies.

I never thought much of Danny Greene before coming across this film on Hulu. I was glad I did. Great storytelling and outstanding acting. Ray Stevenson (Thor's buddy Volstagg) does an excellent job bringing the flamboyant criminal to life and Vincent D'Onofrio and Christopher Walken are great in their supporting roles here as well.

I won't go into all the details but the movie is about Irish-American mobster Danny Greene - a central figure in the violent and bloody mafia wars in Cleveland in the mid-1970s. It starts with his rise to president of the International Longshoreman's Association, his downfall from that position, and his reinvention as one of Cleveland's most powerful mob bosses.

The film is done in the finest American tradition of glamourizing historical mob figures. So if that offends you, I'd highly recommend skipping this one. The charasmatic Greene is portrayed in very likable fashion. The (numerous) killings and beatings are decidedly shown from his point of view. And some of Greene's well known and less endearing characteristics are either given short shrift or not covered at all. For example, while president of the longshoremen's union, in addition to embezzlement of course, he was known to take money from apprentices who wanted to get into the union, have employees loyal to him beat other employees who didn't come into line, and to stand over "his" men in classic poses, shirtless, like the Irish folk hero he fancied himself to be. He was also an FBI informant. The movie touches on this latter point but does not really go into it.

Still, overall, this is a very strong movie for the genre. And from what I can tell, it's pretty accurate historically also, though of course it's heavily dramatized in some areas I'm sure. If you like this sort of film, I can definitely recommend watching this one.

A prime example of the "stoner comedy." This was a rather strange genre of movies which placed immature and unmotivated Gen-X white males (privileged, in today's parlance) into odd situations, and chronicled the hijinks which followed, in hit or miss fashion.

We can probably trace the roots to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, with Cheech and Chong and Bob and Doug McKenzie perhaps being the grandfathers. Other examples include Wayne's World, Encino Man, Airheads, Mallrats, In the Army Now, Jury Duty, Billy Madison, Grandma's Boy, Happy Gilmore, Dude, Where is My Car?, the Harold & Kumar series, and so on. MTV's Beavis & Butthead capitalized on the same phenonium in cartoon format.

The genre might seem perplexing now but it was very popular during its heyday. Paulie Shore, Brendan Fraser, Adam Sandler, Mike Judge, and Kevin Smith all owe their fortunes to it. And the rest of us perhaps a slight loss of IQ points to it.

If Clerks represents the high end of the spectrum, then Bio-Dome represents the low end. The movie is definitely dumb as hell, and it's sub-5 point rating accurately sums it up. Still though, I give it a 5 because it might be worth watching now. It's a historical curiosity for one thing. The movie is very Gen X. I suspect that Millennials and Gen Zers might find it hard to relate to and more of a novelty, and thus perhaps less annoying than intelligent people did nearly 25 years ago. And those who were around at the time might find it more tolerable now since they're not being subjected to Paulie Shore and these types of movies on a regular basis like they were back then.

Also, if today's shrill Green New Deal progressives annoy you in any way, this movie might actually be something of a treat. The movie and the two buffones who serve as its protagonists of course make a complete and utter mockery out of the subject of environmentalism and those who have dedicated their lives to the cause. So depending on your disposition, it may be worth taking a trip back in time if it's on Netflix for free.

I remember seeing this near the time it came out and found it very stylish and interesting. I just watched it again after 25 years. I still enjoyed it but, of course, it definitely feels dated, and doesn't pack the punch it packed back then due to 25 years of progress on LGBT issues.

I think some of the bad reviews might be coming from people putting it into modern context. Some are probably saying, "ok, and...?" That's because today (fortunately) it simply isn't all that earth-shattering to think that same-sex couples seek romantic relationships much like straight couples do.

But back in 1994, this was not commonly thought of by those outside the LGBT community, so the film was a big deal conceptually. It was also very modern in style. Put two and two together and you had a very hip little art house movie.

It doesn't come off that way now though. The concept is pretty mainstream and the film is definitely not modern in style. So really, the film needs to be viewed as a piece of history and it will be much more enjoyable.