Casper Van Dien stars as an American senator who’s been having nightmares of being attacked by rats. He believes the dreams are a message from a higher power, so when he goes to Russia to give a speech, instead of sticking to the script, he launches into a bizarre tirade. Live on global television, he states that Russian politicians will turn into rats unless they give up their corrupt ways. Naturally, people laugh off his little outburst until, of course, politicians start turning into giant rats. Soon, everybody looks to Van Dien for a cure, but he prefers to go into hiding with the help of two sexy Russian hookers (Victoria Summer and Linda Bella).
Van Dien has the look of someone who’s only doing it for the money. Who can blame him with a script like this? Catherine Oxenberg (Van Dien’s real-life wife at the time) co-stars as his long-suffering wife. I think she was only in it for a free trip to Russia with her hubby. Both Summer and Bella have brief nude scenes, which helps somewhat.
Writer/director/producer Vladimir Uglichin is kind of like a modern-day Russian equivalent of Ed Wood. He wears his heart on his sleeve, but just doesn’t have the budget or talent to back up his unlikely premise. For all I know, there might’ve been some deeper meaning to all the rat symbolism in the picture. Maybe it would make more sense if I was Russian. I guess I can give him a mulligan on that and assume something must’ve got lost in the translation. Or maybe he’s just certifiably looney tunes.
When it comes to the rat people, the CGI effects are about as bad as you’d expect. Maybe even a little worse. With a title like Ratpocalypse, you may be expecting something in the vein of Sharknado. However, this is more of a political satire than a horror movie, and a rather unfunny one at that. It all adds up to one of the most perplexing bad movies I have seen in some time. Uglichin might not be talented, but he is earnest, which at the very least keeps it from being a completely unwatchable mess.
AKA: Higher Mission. AKA: Rats or Love Women.
No comments:
Post a Comment