| Plot: Quintin Kemmer is just your average, dorky, devoted comic book fan that works as a security guard at a research facility. After a robbery goes wrong at the lab and Quintin's partner is killed, he decides to inject himself with experimental spider DNA (always a good choice). After he develops some super-strength and the backbone to start a relationship with his female neighbor, his powers soon go out of control and before you know it he's offing people arachnid-style. Now it's up to weary detective Jack Grillo (a bloated Dan Aykroyd) to stop him. It's fang versus fat, ladies and gents. Review: Sigh, this is what happens when you decide to try and turn a B-movie into a serious flick. Earth vs. the Spider has camp, corn, and cheesiness written all over it. It is after all a remake of a 1958 B-movie, a giant monster movie back when they were a dime a dozen. They're still a dime a dozen, but they're all released direct-to-video any more along with slasher flicks. In any case, I came into the movie expecting mindless, gooey fun just like the direct-to-video movie Spiders. What I got instead was a rip-off of David Cronenberg's The Fly sprinkled with Spider-Man references at every turn (the whole "Arachnid Avenger" bit really got on my nerves). With a title like this, everything except the big spider is filler, so why not give the audience what they want? Instead of Quintin turning into a spider as soon as possible, we endure an agonizingly long transformation and don't get to see the entire Arachnid Quintin until the very end of the movie. I kept checking the clock and waited for something to happen only to get disappointment after disappointment. We instead get to enjoy watching Quintin have flashbacks involving the Arachnid Avenger comic and the robbery (by the 20th time it lost all meaning), see him ask his neighbor Stephanie out after saving her, and him discovering his powers. The problem with all this is that the viewer (me) is always going to be ten steps ahead of the film. We know Quintin is for a while going to be on top of the world with Stephanie, we know he'll use his powers to fight against bullies and criminals, and we know he'll finally turn into a mindless spider and have to be put down. When the Q man finally is a spider killing people, we just don't give a damn at that point. The special effects are the usual B-movie visuals you've come to expect and Arachnid Quintin is nothing to write home about. Fun fact: spiders have eight legs, Quintin only sprouts six. To add insult to injury, when people do get killed, they're either offscreen or completely bloodless. As to how the makers of this movie expected anyone to stay interested is beyond me. Slow pacing and boring kills aren't the best ways to capture the audience's attention. Acting-wise, the only person's performance I can praise is that of Theresa Russell whose Grillo's philandering wife, and the only reason I can do that is because she looks good on camera. As to how Grillo managed to land her is beyond me. Aykroyd plays a noir-ish detective, spouting lines like "You're one piece of work, lady" seriously. All Aykroyd managed to do was get on my nerves and looked fat, one too many chilli dogs. Eh, at least he got paid. Devil Gummersall does a decent enough job acting as Quintin, but it's just your typical TV movie acting. If you're looking for some camp value in Earth vs. the Spider, forget it, there's none to be had. Earth vs. the Spider is a pretty damn tedious monster flick, but at least it's not a total abortion. Enough effort's been put into the making of the movie to make it slightly above being terrible, but not enough to recommend it. If you have to get your giant spider ya-yas out, just rent the camp-fest Spiders because it delivers on everything this movie didn't. And finally, the biggest flaw was this--Theresa Russell didn't get naked! What a rip! |
| Rating: *1/2 |
| Review by Jim |
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