Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World!
'Put the old man on the horn Pete.'
Is that a euphemism?
‘I don’t get it’
This week we check out the Deadly Mantis.
Directed by Michael Bay.
and scripted by Sir Isaac Newton.
‘For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction’
The film’s early sections are a characterless hodge-podge of random events...
maps,
and stock footage.
’These are hot phones, using them it takes only 15 seconds to talk to Alaska,'
'Ten seconds to alert Newfoundland,'
'5 seconds to contact you.'
'Threes seconds to reach the Pentagon command post.'
Two seconds to order pizza.
'What are you talking about?'
This is all to let us know something bad is going on at the North Pole
‘There's an ordinary explanation for what happened.' Maybe the men are on their way back to the base now’
‘On foot? There’d be footprints in th snow, you see any?’
It was just a suggestion there’s no need to be a dick.
'What in the world...'
'What is it?'
The only clue is this broken segment of a giant Terry’s chocolate orange,
which causes much head-shaking in the scientific community,
xand they come to the unanimous conclusion that this problem can only be solved by a much more handsome scientist
'Jackson talking',
‘The Pentagon? Sure I’ll wait’
You’d think he’d be more surprised by that.
‘It isn’t everyday the Pentagon calls you’
This is his assistant, who has a unique way of telling men when she’s interested in them.
‘The light just turned green’
Anyway, God’s gift to Palaeontology figures out that this strange object is the spur of an insect.
‘An insect?’
'Well that's where the process of elimination seems to be leading us.'
Although it’s another 5 minutes before anyone thinks to say ‘it is quite big’
‘Something unbelievably incredibly huge’
All told it takes half an hour of intricate plotting and speeded up eskimos,
to work out that the North pole is being terrorised by a giant preying mantis.
‘You mean this cute little bug?’
which would be a very effective way of raising levels of mystery and intrigue,
in a film that wasn’t called The Deadly Mantis.
I know what’s doing it! I have to wait half an hour for the characters to catch up.
It makes the scientists seem like morons!
'Dr you're beginning to sound like Sherlock Holmes.'
An impression not dispelled by the overwhelming stream of factual inaccuracies they spout!
‘Every known species of animal has a bony skeleton’
No they don’t.
‘Worms, snails, insects, shellfish’
Yeah, those are all animals ‘Professor’
'The ant inside this amber is at least 90 million years old,;
That’s clearly not an ant.
'The deer fly does 600 miles an hour.'
Sorry, a 600mph bug? Are you high?!
'That sounds logical.'
The Professor and his assistant then visit the sex-starved soldiers of the North Pole. in search of the beast.
'Well speak up.'
'He's with a woman... a female woman.'
And you know, it doesn’t look bad.
I’d say the effects are at least on a par with the excellent Them!
and million times better than the similarly plotted Giant Claw.
‘Where do we go from here?’
Most monster movies would now ask how to destroy the monster, usually via some new radiation weapon.
But killing the mantis doesn’t seem to be a problem, after all, it’s just bug.
The issue is finding it.
‘If there is such a thing why hasn’t anyone seen it?’
That’s the thing, if your whole movie is based around the inconspicuousness of a 50 foot insect,
you have a problem.
I’ll buy that it can hide in the Arctic, but not once it flies south.
You see? I really feel like someone would see that.
Hold me.
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