Virus (Film Review)

1999 Universal Pictures
Directed by: John Bruno; Written by: Dennis Feldman, Chuck Pfarrer, and Jonathan Hensleigh (uncredited)
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Sutherland, William Baldwin, Joanna Pacuła, and Marshall Bell
MPAA Rating: R; Running Time: 99 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 5/10

The Sea Star is sailing through the South Pacific, hauling an expensive and uninsured load, when it runs smack dab into a hurricane. The load sinks into the South Pacific depths, and now its everything the amoral, alcoholic captain can do to keep the ship afloat. The Sea Star survives the rough seas, though, and makes it to the eye of the hurricane, where everything is temporarily calm...and the crew find that they are not alone. There's an enormous Russian science ship, worth millions, sitting seemingly unoccupied in the gentle waters. The Sea Star might just be able to salvage their lost payday by towing it to shore. There's only one issue: something killed everyone aboard the Russian vessel...and the crew of the Sea Star are next!
1999s Virus is certainly one of the dumbest mega-budgeted films I have ever seen. I've spent my entire life in South Louisiana and can say for a fact, that while the eye of an oceanic hurricane might be mostly free of wind, the opposing winds of the eye wall around the eye create massive tidal waves within the eye. So, instead of sailing across liquid glass to the Russian vessel, the Sea Star would have likely been capsized immediately, everyone would have died, and the film would have only been ten minutes long. The entire premise of the film is ridiculous. Add to that the fact that when the Russian ship, now occupied by Sea Star's crew, reinters the hurricane and does start to encounter massive rollers, the crew just walk around the ship without so much as having to reach out a hand to steady themselves, and you've got an immensely stupid film. But it is an entertaining immensely stupid film for the most part.
Over the last 25 years, Virus has become a cult classic, and it's not because the film makes any sense. Virus is directed by John Bruno, the visual effects guru for legendary James Cameron films like Terminator 2: Judgement Day and The Abyss (for which Bruno won an Academy Award). Virus' villain is an alien that's beamed itself to Earth through electronic waves (similar to the movie I reviewed several days ago, The Astronaut's Wife...I guess there was someone in the water...or the airwaves in 1999). That alien tries to construct physical forms for itself through machine parts it finds on Virus' Russian ship...and the bodies...sometimes still living...of the Russian ship's and Sea Star's crews. The results are some incredibly cool and gnarly looking cyborg creations that special effects and monster design fans should find quite entertaining. I most definitely did, despite the rest of the film's stupidity. I believe Universal, famous for movie monsters, thought they had a hit here solely based upon Bruno and his crew's robotic creations. Unfortunately, there's not really a compelling film around them, even with Jamie Lee Curtis as the lead robot fighter, and a leering Donald Sutherland as her wicked, robot-sympathizing captain. Virus was a massive flop, despite multiple tie-ins, and even the cult following today is relatively small. With that said...this is probably not the last time I'll watch this film...those robots are really cool.