Virus [Region 2] | ![Virus [Region 2]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71VRN7VJW7L._SL500_.gif) | Director: John Bruno
Actors: Jamie Lee Curtis, William Baldwin, Donald Sutherland, Joanna Pacula, Marshall Bell
Category: DVD
Buy Used: $27.31
as of 3/20/2010 05:23 EDT details
Seller: valleycd
Rating:  109 reviews
Format: PAL
Languages: German (Subtitled), English (Original Language), Russian (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 2
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 4010324020178
ASIN: B00004S5RZ
Theatrical Release Date: January 15, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
In this fast-paced, sci-fi/horror shoot-'em-up based on the Dark Horse comic book, Jamie Lee Curtis plays the navigator of an ocean-going tug. When a typhoon cripples their boat, the crew sails into the eye of the storm, where they discover a high-tech Russian communications and research vessel adrift. Only one Russian crewmember is still alive, raving about "intelligent lightning." They soon discover that an alien life form has taken over the ship's computers and is churning out biomechanical warriors. With their own boat destroyed, the crew must battle the creature as the ship reenters the storm. If the basic story and characters all sound familiar, it may not surprise you that producer Gale Anne Hurd's other films include The Terminator and Aliens. This movie and its derivative screenplay aren't nearly as good as those were, and director John Bruno (who won an Oscar for best visual effects for The Abyss) seems more skilled at action choreography and special effects than character and story. Curtis plays another variation on her "scream queen" persona, while Donald Sutherland gives a deliciously hammy performance as the tug captain (in his words, "the dominant life form") who smells salvage money if he can claim the Russian ship for his own. For all the picture's flaws, the effects are good (and gory) and it moves at top speed for a brisk 100 minutes. A trivia factoid: at one point on this troubled production, film footage was seized at the airport because the shipping box was prominently marked with the film's title! --Geof Miller
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 109
 Even the star thinks it's that bad! March 16, 2010
Robert P. Beveridge (Cleveland, OH)
Virus (John Bruno, 1999)
Jamie Lee Curtis, one of the stars of John Bruno's only feature film, is on record as saying that Virus is "the all time piece of s**t", and she's right. And yet ten years later, in a Hollywood culture where the comic book adaptation has become a multi-billion-dollar niche, you kind of have to go back and see it; these are the hardscrabble beginnings that would eventually birth such blockbusters as Watchmen and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man franchise. That makes the movie itself, which comes off as a silly pastiche of slightly less mediocre movies, no less awful, but it does have its place in film history.
Curtis plays Kit Foster, part of the crew of a tugboat that's out on the seas trying to make a living. When things go disastrously wrong during a storm, they encounter a Russian ship that seems to be abandoned. Captain Everton (Donald Sutherland, sporting the worst Irish accent in film history)'s greedy eyes light up at the possibility of a salvage run that will net the crew more money than it cost to make this film, and the crew scramble aboard--Everton, Kit, Steve (William Baldwin), the wonderfully-tattooed Hiko (Sunshine's Cliff Curtis), J. W. (The Astronaut Farmer's Marshall Bell), Richie (Thr3e's Sherman Augustus), and Squeaky (Planet Terror's Julio Oscar Mechoso). All well and good until they discover that someone else is on the ship, and that someone else has scuttled their tugboat, leaving them adrift in a dead ship in the open sea not only with that person, but with something far more dangerous. You get the idea that said something probably has to do with the opening scene, in which the Russians are monitoring a spacecraft that gets hit by some sort of weird extraterrestrial storm.
The reason John Bruno has never directed another feature film (he did a bit of the T2 footage for the amusement park ride, and two episodes of Star Trek: Voyager before going back to the world of visual effects; he most recently worked on James Cameron's blockbuster Avatar) is likely because this one is so badly botched. Put aside Sutherland's silly accent and the worst acting ever delivered by any member of this cast. Ignore the incredible silliness of many bits of Chuck Pfarrer's screenplay, adapted from his own comic series. Just look at it from a technical perspective. David Eggby, who can be such an artist when he wants to be (he did the camerawork on Mad Max and Pitch Black), seems to have shot the whole thing through some sort of weird blue filter. Maybe he was going for bleakness? No, he did that very well in some other films. The music (by Joel McNeely, who scored Holes rather well) is sometimes clever, but too often gets in the way. The editing is credited to an actual, live human being (M. Scott Smith, who also did The Crow), but it looks suspiciously as if the film was thrown into a blender to cut, and then reassembled by a blind ten-year-old. How did so many otherwise talented people make such a bad movie? I don't have an answer to this, and if you value your sanity, you should avoid trying to come up with one as well. *
Derivative? But still fun... December 22, 2009
Jay Stark (Albion, MI USA)
I didn't think it was TOO bad...Yeah, a whole 'nother take on the "Borg" story, but maybe the comic book was out first with it. I don't know. It was good action, and that's always worth at least two stars. The one thing that stops me from giving it four stars was the incredible weirdness in having a ship out on the ocean being in contact with the Mir. It was implied that it was the only communication hub for it. What's up with that? Other than that...
Awesomely Bad October 10, 2009
J. Simon (NY, USA)
Virus is a movie a lot of people seem to hate for one reason or another. It might be the corny acting or the cheesy scares or the plot holes.
To me, these things make this movie awesome. Virus is a really cheesy horror flick that is great for watching with friends. If you don't take the movie too seriously it's a heck of a lot of fun.
A lot of folks nay-say this thing but I say give it a chance. Virus is a great underrated hit for "bad movie night".
 virus September 23, 2009
Claude Odell
Jamie Lee Curtis did a great job and Virus is a good combo of scifi and horror, if you like action, blood and mayhem watch this one.
Dead In The Water... May 15, 2009
Bindy Sue Frønkünschtein (under the rubble)
A small salvage crew, led by a greedy captain (Donald Sutherland from Don't Look Now and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers '78) and first-mate Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween 1 and 2, H2O, The Fog, Prom Night, Terror Train, Mother's Boys, etc.), find themselves aboard a seemingly abandoned russian ship worth millions. Unfortunately, an alien lifeform has already laid claim to the vessel, and will do anything to keep it. VIRUS is your basic man vs. alien story set in the middle of a stormy ocean. However, it did have cool visuals and a fairly impressive techno-beasty to deal with. The ending was pretty goofy, but the rest was a lot of fun...
Showing reviews 1-5 of 109
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