Screamers
All the Screams are on the Screen
Here is a film that boasts most of the concepts contained in modern
mega-hit science fiction action thrillers. From Aliens, it
borrows the theme of embattled soldiers on another planet. From
The Thing, it borrows the theme of humans in a harsh remote
environment being infiltrated by masquerading fiends. And from
Terminator, it takes the idea of deadly robots taking human
form. None of this bothers me all that much - all of these ideas
are much older than the examples I've given, and all are given
fresh twists. Screamers has a well thought out background,
relatable characters, eye-popping special effects, and plenty
of blood and thunder derring-do. So why doesn't any of it work?
The hero of this Canadian feature is sci-fi veteran Peter Weller,
who learned how to look natural among hardware in The Adventures
of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension (1984), RoboCop
(1987), and Leviathan (1989). Weller plays the edgy former
miner that now commands Alliance military forces on planet Sirius
6B. As the obligatory sci-fi movie opening crawl tells us, Sirius
6B used to be a veritable paradise, until a new energy-producing
element was discovered there. When it became known that the processes
necessary in the mining of this new element caused disastrous
pollution, the Alliance government ordered operations shut down.
Mining company NEB resisted, sparking a planet-wide civil war.
Fighting in this war got extremely ugly, with both sides resorting
to nuclear and chemical weapons, effectively destroying the environment
they were fighting over. The Alliance introduced the dirtiest
weapon of all with the introduction of the Armored Mobile Sword,
a kind of fast-moving robotic mole equipped with razor saws and
an instinct to seek out and kill anything organic. The soldiers
call them "screamers" because of the disarming noise
they make as they're about to attack. Weller and his troops are
fed up with fighting a war over a ruined planet, and wait anxiously
to be ordered home. A glimmer of hope arrives when the NEB sends
a message asking to begin peace negotiations.
Soon after, other news arrives in the form of the lone survivor
of a crashed troop ship: the war has moved on to another planet,
and the Alliance has left their troops on Sirius 6B hanging, with
no plans to ever recall them. Weller takes matters into his own
hands, embarking on a mission to engage the enemy in peace negotiations
on his own. Arriving at NEB headquarters, he finds that things
are much worse than he thought - the screamers haven't just been
reproducing in their automated subterranean factories, but evolving
as well, taking on human form to infiltrate and annihilate whatever
group they find. Which is exactly what has happened to the NEB
high command.
Weller takes flight with a small group of survivors, in a desperate
effort to get back to base to warn his company, and get everyone
off the planet before it's too late. His biggest problem is that
he doesn't know who to trust - the screamers have evolved far
enough that his closest friend could be one of them in disguise.
The problem here is that, while Screamers is packed with
seemingly sure-fire elements, there is little new material to
liven things up. Director Christian Duguay, who helmed a couple
of Scanners sequels, as well as the derivative TV thriller
Adrift, does a decent job of coming up with fresh visual
interpretations of old situations, but he makes the mistake of
cloaking everything in sci-fi noir gloom, dissipating any sense
of suspense. In a situation as old as Robert Heinlein's novel
The Puppet Masters, we should be consumed with mounting
terror and paranoia that any moment a companion could turn into
a monster, but since we're not given much hope of success to begin
with, there are no surprises to be had. Instead of excitement,
we only get depression.
Adding to the depression is the fact that I really wanted to like
this movie more. It's technically brilliant, with beautiful photography
and f/x (particularly some old fashioned stop-motion animation
by the Chiodo brothers). The basic scenario is engaging enough,
and the Terminator-inspired screamers are plenty nasty. As it
is, Screamers stands quite a bit above all the action/sci-fi
fare crowding video store shelves. But theater audiences demand
more than recycled ideas with a fresh coat of paint.
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Written by Brian Thomas