Uncle Don’s Views of Nil Repute

Uncle Don

Just before the flick started, a multi-car accident outside the theater

should have been a premonition of the accident about to happen within the

theater, which was to be witnessed by a partial dozen of horrified

onlookers.

In its own kind of slackjawed, drooling, knuckle-dragging sort of way,

“Bats” was a rather entertaining flick, showing how far a once-promising

actor (Lou Diamond Philips) is willing to drop to perform his craft.

Situated in Gallup, Texas, and Skull Valley, Ariz., along with a number

of varying vagrant geographic locations, “Bats” lets the cliches roll on

and on to the betterment of certainly the most moronic monster movie

you’ll not see this year.

These are not your garden-variety rabid, bloodsucking bats. These are

your garden-variety, Indonesian gene-modified by the resident mad

scientist bats. Infected with some sort of deadly virus (liberalpox,

maybe), they’ve escaped from your friendly neighborhood secure government

test facility. They’re big, they’re bad, and they make all of them

chupacabras you’ve seen look like Winnie the Pooh. Just another

run-of-the-mill government weapon gone loony-tunes.

Out to save the world is a varying cast of pseudo-Texas accented Emmets

and Amandas, but no Billy Bobs and Bubbas. They don’t move fast, talk

even slower and stumble around like sailors on shore leave.

The resident mad scientist explained his motivation behind the new and

improved bats by saying that a scientist makes things better. That’s his

job. Now the little darlings are more intelligent, bigger, stronger and

omnivorous (for you grads of public school, that means they eat

everything).

The clouds roll in. The moon rises. Water runs under a wooden bridge

where the local sheriff hits on the non-mad female scientist as they

ruminate about things irrelevant and the sky fills with cheesy special

effects bats.

Ever seen “Tremors,” “The Birds,” “Frogs,” “Alligator,” “Piranha” or

“Night of the Living Dead” where barely sentient creatures attack

innocent humans? “Bats” continues in the vein of stoopidity well mined by

those flicks. In the bright lights of filmmaking, “Bats” is a 15-watt bug

light of enjoyable stoopidity.

In their infinite wisdumb, our resident geniuses figger out that if the

bats ain’t destroyed, all of civilization will be. They can’t be nuked,

poisoned, shot or trapped, so these yahoos figger that, like that termite

company, they’ll just freeze their little buns off.

At this point, “Bats” degenerates from abject stoopidity to terminal

idiocity. All for the better. Hell, it ain’t “Citizen Kane.” It’s better

than that. Gratuitous violence, nonstop illogical action and a constant

screenplay of single-syllable words keep “Bats” from becoming a “Snore of

the Worlds.”

After several army divisions are wiped out by these flying furballs, our

trio of heroes descends into the mine where the bats are holed up.

Falling through a shaft, they end up going where only bats go when bats

have to go. And they’ve gone. A lot.

The heroes are on a race to freeze the little monsters before the

military flies in a motley assortment of rent-a-dent fighter-bombers to

blow the mine, possibly not killing all them bats -- who breed like rats.

And gawd-forbid, might breed a sequel.

The bats aren’t happy about their impending extermination. The heroes

escape, things blow up for no particular reason, the military calls off

its attack, and the actors see their market value depreciate

exponentially.

“Bats” is that rarest of movies. One so incredibly bad, so loaded with

plot holes, so enamored with the worst in filmmaking, so schlock-full of

bad computer animations, so populated with horrible acting, that it’s

like a plane crash. You shouldn’t watch, but your eyes can’t help but

observe the disaster in front of you.

* UNCLE DON reviews B movies and cheesy musical acts exclusively for the

Daily Pilot. You can e-mail him at o7 [email protected] .