No, this isn’t a remake of the killer ant flick from the ‘70s. It’s a braindead, albeit rather amusing conspiracy thriller/action flick. Dean Cain stars as a disgraced former football star-turned-Navy SEAL-turned-journalism student who gets the plum assignment for his college newspaper to solve the death of his best friend who was killed by an evil pharmaceutical company working on a cure for AIDS.
I have to be honest with you: “Dean Cain stars as a disgraced former football star-turned-Navy SEAL-turned-journalism student who gets the plum assignment for his college newspaper to solve the death of his best friend who was killed by an evil pharmaceutical company working on a cure for AIDS”, is a sentence I never thought I would ever type. I’ve typed it twice now and I still don’t believe it.
You have to think the original script might’ve called for someone considerably younger to play the journalism student. I’m not saying thirtysomething disgraced football players who used to be Navy SEALS can’t make a career U-Turn and go back to school or anything. It just seems an oddly convenient way to explain why our hero A) Is a little old to be a college student B) Has a bum knee that the bad guys exploit every time the filmmakers need to wrap up a scene C) The ability to miraculously pull off dime store Jackie Chan maneuvers, even though he has the aforementioned bum knee (he even outruns a speeding car with his bad knee in one scene) D) The ability to use a football as a deadly weapon and E) The ability to turn a football stadium into a death trap (probably the biggest laugh in the movie).
Speaking of football, The Boz himself, Brian Bosworth co-stars as the henchman for the evil corporation who is tasked with eliminating Cain. I like The Boz as much as the next red-blooded American, but he is a bit miscast as a villain. Seeing him in his three-piece suit, earpiece communicator, and goatee is a hoot. Remember in Superman 3 when Superman got hit with the generic brand Kryptonite and turned into only a slightly repugnant guy and not really a “bad” guy? That’s the kind of energy The Boz brings to the role. Maybe if the film had been made ten years earlier, Boz could’ve played Cain’s role. The football theme probably would’ve made a lot more sense.
Phase IV kind of gets bogged down whenever it goes into conspiracy thriller mode. Three Days of the Condor this is not. The use of AIDS as a major plot point approaches tastelessness at times too, especially for a dumb Dean Cain/Brian Bosworth production.
You know what, though? Just when I try to dislike movie, I remember that Dean Cain stars as a former-disgraced-football-star-turned-Navy-SEAL-turned-journalism-student who gets the plum assignment for his college newspaper to solve the death of his best friend who was killed by an evil pharmaceutical company working on a cure for AIDS, and I have to smile a little bit. (Sorry, I had to type it again. I don’t when I’ll get the chance to ever do that again.)
Second Opinions:
Direct to Video Connoisseur: Direct to Video Connoisseur: Phase IV (2001) (dtvconnoisseur.blogspot.com)
Comeuppance Reviews: Comeuppance Reviews: Phase IV (2002)
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