If you took Deep Rising and Star Trek: First Contact and combined their ideas, you'd get... well, you'd get some kind of cyborg squid, probably. But if you took those two movies and threw in a healthy dose of Scent of Suckage, you'd get Virus.

Touted on the official web site as a "a contemporary, techno-thriller", Virus centers around the crew of a small boat that loses its cargo in a storm. They happen across a Russian communications vessel previously disabled by a transmission from MIR (if you're saying "huh?" then you've probably got the idea). The greedy crew wants to claim the Russian ship as salvage... so of course they foolishly head aboard, even though there's overturned lifeboats scattered about the derelict, not to mention the bullet holes and the large puddles of blood.

While the premise -- an alien intelligence giving itself form through machinery with the intent of obliterating humanity -- is a decent (if overdone) one, the execution in this movie... well, it makes you want to carry out some executions, if you know what I mean. Early on in the movie, when we saw a little robotic thingymagig, I made a geeky "You will be assimilated" joke for the groaning pleasure of my viewing companions. Not ten minutes later, I was horrified to find that I was psychic (or maybe the film's just predictable; I prefer option number one). Not only were some of the crew "assimilated", but we even get a shot of one crew member who's only partway through the process... and his machinery consists of headgear. And an eyepiece. And even a scene where we see him in the dark and the light from his eyepiece sweeps over the camera. You know the one -- you've seen it in good movies. I expected him to say "I am Locutus of Borg," but it wasn't to be; he wasn't a sexy bald guy, therefore he just got killed. Other horrid sequences included a "conversation" with the alien, much like we saw in Sphere except... not good.

This movie's strength doesn't lie in suspense... or characterization, or action, or writing, actually. Our last hope really lies in the actors, but even they disappoint. How a film like this managed to garner a cast that included Jamie Lee Curtis, William Baldwin, and Donald Sutherland is completely beyond me. Even worse, these actors who we expect at least a little talent from are absolutely lacking it in Virus; Curtis and Baldwin are obvious love interests (being the only "attractive" people aboardship), and Sutherland floats in and out of what might have been an Irish accent or just generic pirate-speak (I expected him to say, "argh, maties" and suddenly acquire a parrot). None of the actors really bother with trying; they actually behave as most of us do: like they're dragging themselves into work so they can get paid and forget this movie ever happened.

DROOL FACTOR: Well, there's a Baldwin boy, if that floats your boat. But you may be put off by the horrid acting overall.

GROSS-OUT FACTOR: Quite pronounced; there's plenty of flesh-rending and brain-poking. In fact, the creators seem to have gone all out in attempting to replace plot with sick-assed special effects.

STRONG CHICK FACTOR: A strong chick is at least attempted by Jamie Lee Curtis, but with this material, nobody could really pull that off.

Virus is currently available on video.

-- Lisa Kohles