Mammoth (2006)

WE HUNTED IT INTO EXTINCTION, NOW IT'S HUNTING US.



Um... no.

You can safely pass on this one. I couldn't pass on it - I mean, it's got a living, breathing people-killing prehistoric BEAST on the cover. It doesn't matter how bad the film may be, with a cover like that, I'm in.

But you need not be. To be fair, the movie doesn't take itself seriously - it's designed from the start to make fun of the whole B-Movie genre. There are lots of laughs and in-jokes during dialogue, and the actors themselves are clearly making fun of... themselves.

But even being a fan of B-Movies, I didn't laugh out loud once during the film. In fact, I didn't even smile. I did kind of half-smile on the inside - once or twice - though.

Even the film plot doesn't take itself too seriously - it's not just a prehistoric-beast-on-the-rampage movie, it's a prehistoric-beast-possessed-by-an-alien-on-the-rampage movie.

So, you know.

About the only reason I'd recommend the movie is if you want to see the CGI mammoth effects. But... they're not really worth it, either. If the movie was pre-T2, the effects would be impressive, but as it is they're too little and too... CGI-ey.

Here's the plot blurb from the movie's website:

When a meteor smashes into a Pleistocene museum, the fury of a partially frozen, 40,000-year-old mammoth is unleashed on a small country town.

Under orders to contain the threat posed by the mammoth at all costs, Special Agents Powers (Leila Arcieri) and Whitaker (Marcus Lyle Brown) are given 17 hours to kill the mammoth or else the entire town will be decimated. The agents recruit local paleontologist Dr. Frank Abernathy (Vincent Ventresca) to help them hunt down the creature before its rampage of death and destruction reaches the outside world.

With the clock ticking and the body count rising, the only chance Dr. Abernathy has of saving his daughter, Jack (Summer Glau), and B-movie-fanatic father, Simon (Tom Skerritt), is to help the agents destroy his life's work.

Notice how the blurb doesn't really mention the whole alien possession angle?

Wonder why.

ONE LONELY BRAIN