This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Holding
Plot Overview
A
football arrives high from the sky at a Harrington High scrimmage.
After practice a shadow approaches the coach Joe Willis (Robert Patrick)
by the bleachers. A faculty meeting ends with Principal Valerie Drake (Bebe
Neuwirth) defending herself with a pair of scissors from a seemingly
drunken coach. Next day is business as usual at this angst-ridden school. A
newcomer Marybeth Louise Hutchinson (Laura Harris) from the
friendly south gets a cold reception from this stuck-up Ohio school. She
feels “pretty alien today.”
School paper photographer Casey Connor (Elijah Wood) finds a funny
looking bug on the field and brings it to his science teacher Professor
Edward Furlong (Jon Stewart) who pegs it as a new species of pelagic
organism. He revives it with water. Slowly the faculty start drinking
inordinate amounts of water and acting strange (“Something
really weird is happening at school.”) Civics teacher Mr. John
Tate (Daniel von Bargen) reviews some material: “Only through
the conformity of the masses can the unified state offer the benefits of
power, order, and security.” In the foreground there's a student
displaying the team mascot HORNETS on the back of his T-shirt.
Manufacturer of home grown drugs &
fake ID Zeke Tyler (Josh Hartnett)
brings one of the replicating bugs into his lab and determines it
to be a parasite that takes over mammalian hosts. These humans begin
acting as they did in Jack Finney's Invasion of the Body
Snatchers, but there aren't any pods; it's a parasite as in
Robert Heinlein's The Puppet Masters. As “all fiction
is based on the truth,” the kids start hunting for the queen of the
hive intending to kill her using Zeke's diuretic drugs to dry her out.
Ideology
The alien hive is a society that's
“so much better. There's no fear. No pain. It's beautiful. And
you will be beautiful. You'll be beautiful. No problems or worries.”
Right, but I don't think these kids want it laid on them however
good the alien intentions or however stressful their school.
The ultimate confrontation between Casey the class punching
bag and the queen-come-from-space is as set forth in, (Prov. 26:17) “He that passeth by,
and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh
a dog by the ears.” Casey is pinned and not liking it.
Permit me to give an example from my own dating experience. I've danced with a folk dancing group over the years. We'd do circle dances, square dances, line dances, individual dances, partner dances and couple dances. I'd go by myself as there were always enough women so I could find a partner for the couple ones. Then for a time we moved our location to a school on the periphery of town. Attendance dropped and unless you came with someone, you were out of luck for the couple dances.
So I asked out a girl at the Community College who'd come from a country in the Middle East and whose (American) parents were in the diplomatic corps. She agreed to what Cyndi Haynes & Dale Edwards in their Dating Handbook would classify as 544. Join a square-dance club. Then she stood me up, not once but twice, but she was very apologetic. Before a third shot at 544, I asked her to 1145. Make plans for future dates together. This is also known as a date date, the purpose of which is to plan future date(s.) We met for fifteen minutes in her apartment, as a 1533. Visit in the parlor. I found her hang-up to be (“I like to kiss”) she wanted to know how I'd fare in the kissing department. So we did 1458. Kiss. I guess I passed the test, for we arranged for another 544, and ended with 2. Kiss good night.
Next week I brung her flowers, we went to the school, we did
1401. Smooch in the deserted parking lot, both coming
and going, I paid our admissions to the dance, and so I had me a partner
for the couple ones.
We arranged to do it again the next week and I gave her my message
number in case she couldn't make it.
The next week I didn't get the message she claimed she'd left, and her regular boyfriend was there when I showed up. He was fuming with a hot Latin temper. After she confirmed that she chose him for the night, I went off by myself. Later that night they showed up for a confrontation. He didn't like the report of 1458. & 1401. although he was okay with 2., but she had it inflated in his mind to 787. Practice for a kissing marathon. I declined his offer to fight and went back into the dance, and he shrugged it off knowing her penchant for 1458. (“I like to kiss”) probably put me up to it,
Or I would have gone back in but Queen Bee blocked my way until I apologized to Sheba there. However, she didn't like my vacuous apology because I didn't display the proper attitude of guilt. She thought I was too much of a cowboy. But living in the West, what does she expect? As it turned out that other boyfriend broke up with her soon after, and then she moved to New England. Since she couldn't make it with Tex or Mex, maybe she was maladapted to the West. Our folk dancing group started including more couples dances in the mix so we wouldn't have to unnecessarily bring in outsiders just to make up couples.
The clueless queen bee had caused me some grief, because with her intervention a culturally confused girl became emboldened in her confusion and started gossiping. Since she was American, with blonde hair and blue eyes, some people lacking the visual cues to recognize her cross-cultural confusion took it for something along the lines of 975. Enjoy the Cosby show. I had to put out some fires. I gave the queen bee what for, she expressed regret for getting involved, and her husband soothed my ruffled feathers. I was like the dog held by the ears, feeling trapped and experiencing (delayed) pain; it's likely to bark or bite. But she'd thought she was doing everyone a favor just like that alien queen, “that maybe I could give you a taste of my world. A world without anger, without fear, without attitude. Where the underachiever goes home at night to parents who care. The jock can be smart, the ugly duckling beautiful, and the class wuss doesn't have to live in terror. The new girl – well – the new girl she can just fit right in with anybody.” The queen just wanted to help the new girl fit in, but she could make her own way.
Production Values
“” (1998) was directed by Robert Rodriguez. Its screenplay was written by Kevin Williamson, based on a story by David Wechter and Bruce Kimmel. It stars Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall and Laura Harris. Also featured are Usher Raymond, Jon Stewart and Daniel Von Bargen. We have both young stars and seasoned B–actors. They all did a righteous job fleshing out a previously trod plot.
MPAA rated it R for violence/gore, strong language, drug use and some (blurred) nudity. Much of the filming was done at the high school in Lockhart, Texas. The special effects combine some practical work with a fair amount of CGI, a lot of it rather ropy. Still, the monster design is an audience grabber. The music was just right for this film.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
The horror was a “what next”
in a high school on a decline that hardly anybody cared about.
The student body is on the verge of riot while the adults' hands are
tied. It's enough to make one wish the aliens would come down and
save us, but, no, we don't want that. This one is worth the viewing.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Well done action flick. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Fit For a Friday Evening. Suspense: Don't watch this movie alone. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Haynes, Cyndi and Dale Edwards. 2002 Things To Do On a Date. Holbrook, MA: Bob Adams Pub., 1992. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org