Virus (Film)

Updated June 26, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

Here's the scenario: alien consciousness starts scrapping together Russian corpses and electronics to form ill-tempered cyborgs. When an unmemorable team of Americans investigate the abandoned vessel, these little Frankensteins get upset. Not only are they trapped inside a painfully derivative sci-fi dystopia flick, pesky humans are threatening their way of, er, life. While it is entirely possible to make an alien film that isn't lightly veiled allegory for foreigners, immigrants, or various ethnic, social, or political minorities, the mess in Virus is indirectly attributable to Russian ineptitude. Sigourney Weaver—oops, Jamie Lee Curtis—is the tough seafarer with true grit but no personality. As the greedy captain in cahoots with Slavic cyborgs, Donald Sutherland stoops to make the most of a limited script. Much like the bio-mechanical monsters made by piecing together defunct materials, Virus cannibalizes some good films but offers no creative energy of its own.