Destination: Infestation (2007)
Directed by: George Mendeluk
Starring: Jessalyn Gilsig, Antonio Sabato Jr, Serge Houde, Karen Holness
The short version: Destination: Infestation is a Canadian made-for-TV ripoff of Snakes on a Plane, but with ants. It’s stupid. It’s crap. It’s fun if you’re drunk or just in the mood for something ridiculous.
So, we’re aboard a plane on its way from here to there which is suddenly invaded by hordes of very aggressive ants. I’m not sure how they got aboard because I missed the first fifteen minutes of the movie when it was on TV, but it seems they somehow were carried aboard by one of the passengers. Luckily, another passenger, Dr Carrie Ross (Jessalyn Gilsig), happens to be an entomologist and identifies the intruders as mutated bulldog ants, smarter and more aggressive than the regular kind. They kill one man, then attack the pilot who barely survives.
While the crew tries to get permisson for an emergency landing – but are denied by some nameless bureaucrat in a big, anonymous building – Dr Carrie Ross decides to fight the ants, assisted by the handsome air marshal Ethan Hart (Antonio Sabato Jr). The ants chew through cables, causing the fuel system to leak. Dr Carrie Ross and Ethan go down into the cargo hold and solve the problem by switching a couple of cables around and then banging on a pipe with a hammer. Finally, the plane lands at a deserted military base. The nameless evil bureaucrat is planning to massacre all the passengers to stop the ants from entering the United States, but his plot is thwarted at the last moment when TV news reporters arrive on the scene.
This movie is about as bad as it gets, but it is somehow entertaining in the way that only really cheap disatser movies can be. Just about every genre cliché is present: the egotistical asshole who complains about every decision, the cute pet in danger, even a couple of nuns (who, sadly, aren’t allowed to speak nor sing). And of course Dr Carrie Ross has time to take a break from the deadly threat to discuss relationships with her annoying teenage daughter (who says things like “Mom, can you stop them form hurting anyone else…from hurting me?”) and being psychoanalysed by air marshal Ethan Hart when things are at their most critical (“You couldn’t stand being watched so you became doctor Carrie Ross…and now you’re the one doing the watching…through a microscope”).
Craptastic. But if you have a high tolerance for absolute junk, then go ahead.
Rating: ?!/5 (Craptastic)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIzUouh_1Yk]