I expected another campy Sci-Fi movie when I popped "Phase IV" into the DVD player. You know, something on the order of "Night of the Lepus" or "Grizzly". But surprise surprise! "Phase IV" ended up being an interesting movie full of striking imagery with a lot of truly amazing footage of ants in action. To clarify, I mean in the sense that it is very well done. Most of the time it left me wondering just how the filmmakers got such fantastic footage of ants. It's Discovery Channel-ready!

The futuristic laboratory in the desert is very '70s-cool and I really liked the mysterious way that the ants were altered. We never really find out how it occurred but it doesn't matter because they are easily the best part of the movie. In fact, anytime the human characters are on the screen, it's boring. I was hoping the ants would invade the lab and devour them just so we could spend more time with the creepy crawlies.

The mood and look of "Phase IV" is exactly the same as the great Robert Wise's 1971 thriller "The Andromeda Strain". Its also got a wee bit of "Colossus: The Forbin Project" thrown in for good measure. But "Phase IV" comes no where near to either of those films in it's tale-telling. The majority of the time it's kind of difficult to tell just what is actually going on with not only the ants, but the scientists as well.

The ending is sort of satisfying...I guess. I can say that it is not a particularly happy one but it also doesn't exactly tie up all of its loose ends.