Virus Reviews

A huge ship, dead in the water and mysteriously deserted, ominously filled with mangled machinery and puddles of blood... no, it's not DEEP RISING, but things are no better aboard the abandoned Russian science ship Akademic Vladislav Volkov than they were on that luxury liner overrun by tentacle monsters. The crew of the crippled salvage tug Sea Star happen upon the derelict vessel during a lull in the mother of all storms, and most of them live just long enough to discover they would have been better off taking their chances with the 40-foot waves. The boarding crew includes loony Captain Everton (Donald Sutherland, affecting a peculiar and distracting accent), a desperate man willing to sacrifice anyone who stands between him and a piece of prime salvage; sensible navigator Kit (Jamie Lee Curtis); hot-headed engineer Steve (William Baldwin); and weapons/electronics whiz Richie (Sherman Agustus). There's not much point getting too attached to the others. The sole survivor of the Russian crew is Nadia (Joanna Pacula), who helpfully fills in plot details so we can get on with the running and screaming: A bizarre radio transmission from the space station Mir unleashed on the ship some kind of hostile alien form composed of pure electrical energy. It took up residence in the computer system, and has been using the ship's sophisticated mechanical capabilities to build itself all sorts of surrogate bodies constructed in equal parts from machinery and human spare parts. Imagine Star Trek's Borg crossed with the rampaging cyborg from the cult British shocker HARDWARE, plus a whole lot of those skittering bug-like things robotics wonks are always crowing are the wave of the future. The robot effects by veteran Phil Tippett are nastily entertaining.script, but the script, based on a Dark Horse comic-book series, is hugely predictable.