Review of Mammoth

Introduction

The UK Sci-Fi Channel is bloomin` rubbish. It really is. It used to be one of the top specialist satellite channels available - airing quite a bit of anime at the weekends and running a decent catalogue of material you`d be unlikely to find anywhere else - but it`s now home to precious little else other than repeats of `Star Trek`, re-runs of old Peter Benchley mini-series and the bad, made for peanuts movies that 10 years ago would have no place to call their own but the ex-rental shelf of some dusty video shop, but nowadays show up in those packs of 50 movies that come free with cheap-as-chips DVD players. The fact that just the other night they were broadcasting `The Thirteenth Floor`, an underrated gem of a sci-fi flick, redeems them in no way whatsoever considering it was showing for the billionth time. Yet its big sister, the US Sci-Fi channel, is completely different. The home to first run TV shows and original, made for the channel movies that actually have a budget-of-sorts, it`s almost painfully unfair that we get lumbered with `Emmanuelle In Space` repeated ad nauseam when the other half have it so much better.

`Mammoth` is a Sci-Fi Channel original, and it takes the notion of tribute firmly between two tusks. Its comical tale is that of Frank Abernathy (Vincent Ventresca), a professor at a Smalltown, USA (or more accurately, Blackwater, Louisiana) museum. When he unwittingly pulls a foreign object out of the museum`s giant frozen mammoth, a meteor smashes into the building and the beast miraculously bursts to life. With the 17-tonne zombie tearing a swath of havoc around town, it`s up to Frank, his 16-year old daughter Jack (Summer Glau) and his UFO-obsessed father (Tom Skerritt) to work with shady government agents and the local sheriff to send it back to the ice age.

Video

Anamorphic 1.78:1, and despite being filmed for TV, it`s a fairly robust looking film with good contrast and a solid palette. The Emmy award-winning special effects are certainly better than you`ll see on your average TV show, but are obviously still some way from your average blockbuster. There is a little grain now and then, some significant aliasing towards the end of the film, and it should be noted, a faint black line down the centre of the frame that appears a few times throughout, but nothing that spoils the visuals in any major way.

Audio

A sole Dolby Digital 5.1 track. It`s definitely one of the more positive surround tracks, with good use of the soundstage, and mighty thumps and booms whenever the beast of the title appears. There was a little drop-out in one scene, but most probably won`t notice it. There`s also a single English subtitle track.

Features

There`s a short 7-minute segment titled `Acting in Mammoth` in which the major cast discuss making the film (and in which Summer Glau looks absolutely knackered), and an even shorter look at the special effects in various stages of construction in `Mammoth Visual Effects`, which lasts around 3-minutes. There`s also a trailer for the feature, and auto-run trailers for a w***y-looking Van Wilder sequel and a horror film based on the Bloody Mary folklore, running with the far less scary title of `Dead Mary`.

Conclusion

If you didn`t get it already, `Mammoth` is a tongue-in-cheek sci-fi comedy, part tribute and part send up of 50s B-movies. It`s mustered a fairly impressive TV cast of genre veterans in Vincent Ventresca (star of the short-lived TV update of `The Invisible Man` and ABC`s `Prey`), Summer Glau (`Firefly`, `The 4400`) and Tom Skerritt ( who was in, err... `Contact`) and tries terribly hard not to take itself at all seriously. It does run perilously close to playing it straight now and then, and there`s a whole dysfunctional family, overly-sentimental single father sub-plot that`s a bit of a dud, but it`s big, dumb fun full of movie references, a touch of satirical humour and some incredibly quote-worthy dialogue. It`s not as ambitious as `Slither`, another great homage to the shlock of old Hollywood sci-fi, but then neither can it afford to be. It`s clearly on a tight budget, and so it keeps its story pretty simple, making no major deviations from what you`d expect after reading a plot outline.

While the script isn`t about to blow you away, it does keep things turning over nicely with a healthy dose of humour and several plays on genre conventions. Ventresca is surprisingly well-fitted to his role which is dashed with some broad comedy, but then most people will probably remember him in his comic boots as Fun Bobby in `Friends`. Glau, who seems destined to play teenagers for the rest of her career, makes the best of a supporting role that doesn`t give her enough screen time but for once puts her in the shoes of a normal teen, and the whole thing looks good; a mixture of decent TV effects and some loving direction lavished on it. As far as made-for-TV genre movies go, you could argue that they really shouldn`t be this good. And you`d probably be right.