Simply Perfect

Good movie but grossly overrated

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Sent to investigate a colleague's disappearance, a team of soldiers along the Russian forest finds the area overrun by genetically-altered bats created as a biological weapon and try to get out alive.On the whole, this is much better than expected and is overall quite fun. One of the best elements about this one is that the films beginnings as an Action film work incredibly well in placing rather impressive action scenes in the film. the first ambush in the forest is one of these great scenes with a lot going on to take control of the bats as they're valiantly fighting the creatures swarming all over the area, making for an impressive sequence. Likewise, the take-over of the bunker and the later ambush in the woods help keep the action going with the fire-fights, explosions and creature attacks to work in a rather impressive amount of action. Aside from the fine action pieces, there's some rather good times here with the film making the most of the bats as the central villains as the swarm here is just big enough to do some real damage as this is gory enough to matter and the special effects used for them are actually very well done with the CGI swarms getting good definition by letting each creature be spotted and the close-ups for the individuals being kept to a minimum so that the focus remains on the group in action. There are a few flaws here, mainly in the rather flimsy story about the purpose behind the mission to get the scientist. It's all quite haphazard as it was done in just a few brief segments that don't make a lot of sense. Otherwise, the bat attacks comprise so few moments of screen time that it's bound to be somewhat disappointing with that factor keeping the creatures to a few select scenes, but this isn't enough of a flaw to really hold back the rather important factors here.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Language.

Bats: Human Harvest is not a good or great movie, but I can think of far worse ways to waste my time. I did like the setting, not quite exotic but atmospheric enough, the photography is not too slipshod and the editing and music were decent. The effects and acting were uneven but by no means across-the-board-distractingly-bad. Some of the effects do look artificial, but the bats are ferocious enough. In terms of acting, there are some who do put effort into their roles, but also others who look as though they are just reading lines. The real problems though were with the characters, story and especially the script. The characters are stereotypical with not much development going on. The story is not exactly dull, but it is never exactly exciting either, and holds few surprises too. The script is the worst offender, often cheesy and stilted than not. All in all, one of the movies that falls into the some good/some bad category. 5/10 Bethany Cox

It's called "Bats: Human Harvest", I'm pretty sure I can end the review there. You know it's going to be good for some marginal entertainment, you know it's going to be bad in any other field you can think of. What's up with the special effects in this one? CGI always looks laughable in low-budget movies but Jesus, this is just insane. The acting is universally terrible, but the Scottish chick who tries and completely fails to do a Russian accent ought to receive special mention. The weirdest thing about that though: this movie was shot in the former Soviet state of Bulgaria! How hard is it to find someone with a genuine Russian accent there? The logics behind a B-movie production, I guess I'll never get it. The comic relief scenes look like they've been written by Germans or something, most awful lines ever. Check out the hilarious interplay between the first victims, move over Laurel and Hardy. When a bunch of corpses are found in the forest, one guy reacts: "Who did this? Stalin's ghost?". Even Ed Wood would throw that in his wastebasket. The movie's filled with action though, it's not a total bore. If you can get over the fact that it sucks, you might even have fun with it.

Dull one-note characters with next to no development, unimpressive performances by people who sound like they're simply reading lines, and ludicrous special effects combine to make this a genuine stinker. The story begins with eminently bland commando Russo and his fellow soldiers attacking an Al-Qaeda training base. The scene tells us that Al-Qaeda has recently come to seek an ultimate weapon, and also serves to illustrate Russo's only character trait, a tendency to eschew teamwork. With the help of a collection of blank slates and walking stereotypes, including a Russian spy, Russo travels to Chechnyan territory to catch a mad scientist working for the terrorists. Along the way, they encounter vast hordes of flesh-eating bats that fly in broad daylight for some reason. From there, the movie becomes nothing more than a dragging morass of ridiculous action, including a scene in which a swarm of bats slices a soldier's arm off!