Now, I haven't seen a movie like this in a long time. It's a classic tale of survival, really. Actually, I'm lying. It's a typical monstrous animal movie. Jaws did it best. After that, they all followed the same formula, and they all sucked.
It seems the government has been genetically engineering bats to make them killing machines. I guess you're supposed to just accept that, since there's really nothing about bats that would make them decent weapons. I mean, the way I see it, the US has some of the best weapons technology in the world, if not the best. Why would they scrap all that in favor of uncontrollable winged creatures that aren't naturally aggressive, let alone carnivorous? I guess scary looking factors greatly in American weapons development.
Also, supposing the government did want bats to be used for combat, what we've seen in the movie really doesn't seem practical. I mean, we have a couple hundred thousand killing machines (that only work nights) that can't really be controlled or maintained. How can anyone expect to keep them controlled?
Anywho, back to the review.
So, we have genetically engineered bats. The Expert (I'll call her Hooper) is brought in to help The Sheriff (I'll call him Brody) take care of them. Hooper brings her assistant, Leon. Leon is the wise-crackin' token black guy. They find the bat cave, an old abandoned mine, and decide to drop a huge refrigeration unit down there. Helping them is the guy who created the bats. He's a little crazy, and he wants the bats to win. The movie leads us to believe that something happened with him and the bats, and he's out for revenge or something, but I guess they cut that part out, since no one really cares. It turns out that the bats are after him. So, he uses his magical bat summoning device, and the bats attack the school where all the main characters have assembled. Bad guy goes out to let the bats get him, and Hooper screams because she loved him so, or something.
Meanwhile, back at the bat cave (rimshot), the army has rigged the place with explosives and dropped the giant fridge down into it. The bats kill everyone.
The next morning, Hooper, Brody, and Leon go to the bat cave to turn on the fridge. They soon learn that they only have about an hour to take care of it because the Air Force is sending a bunch of fighters to blow it up.
Let me tell you something about fighter jets, specifically F-16's. These suckers are fast. There is no way they could be racing to the bat cave for an entire hour. It would be a matter of minutes.
But, they needed an hour, so the script writer gave them an hour. So, Hooper and Brody go down, fall through the floor into a river of bat poo, and turn on the fridge. The bats spot them, and they hurry out. Lucky for them, there was a ladder right next to the hole they fell through, so they could survive. I wouldn't have been surprised if they knocked the ladder down so the bats couldn't follow, but no such luck. So, they get out, Leon blows the entrance, the fighters are called off, and the bats all die. The end.
We decided to count how many times the word bat or bats was used in the movie. Final tally: 71. That averages out to once every 88 seconds.
I will say this, though. They didn't use really bad CGI. That's always a plus. Course, the really bad puppets almost cancels that out.
Almost.