DRAGON WASPS
DVD. Chelsea Films.

In a way, this should be a Golden Age for fans of trashy monster movies, as long as you are not too fussy. The seemingly insatiable need for content from SyFy and other cable broadcasters has certainly led to a constant stream of increasingly ludicrous giant monster mashes that clearly have some appeal to a wide audience. But while the odd one – the deliciously ludicrous Sharktopus for instance – manage to be a lot of fun, far too many of these films are bafflingly awful. It’s not that they are cheap and tacky, because all our favourite monster movies of yesteryear were cheap and tacky; and it’s not because they are knowingly schlocky, because those old movies were often made with tongue firmly in cheek and with no delusions from the filmmakers about what they were making. It’s not even the predictably dreadful CGI effects. No, the problem with so many of these films – and Dragon Wasps is a case in point – is that they tend to think a wild central premise is enough, and all too often fail to deliver the goods. In short – they commit the ultimate sin of being dull.

Dragon Wasps has unlikely entomologist Gina Humphries (Dominika Juillet) and her assistant Rhonda (Nikolette Noel) out on the Belize jungles in search of her scientist father, who has mysteriously disappeared. As the pair stumble over their vaguely scientific dialogue (there are plenty of awkward pauses as they seemingly struggle to remember the nonsense they need to say) they come across a military checkpoint, and before long have been joined by cynical army man John Hammond (Corin Nemec), only to come under attack from a rebel band of cocaine guerrillas and an army of giant monster wasps. Giant monster exploding wasps. Forming an uneasy truce with rebel leader Jaguar, the group try to figure out how to defeat these genetically created beasties while knowing that the alliance could break down at any moment.

Dragon Wasps is notably short on Dragon Wasp action for the most part, instead concentrating on the one-dimensional military and guerrilla stereotypes and having an unusual fixation on cocaine, which turns out to be some sort of wasp-defeating wonder drug. You can reach your own conclusions about that, but the viewer might well find some sort of external stimulants are necessary to get through this, given the scattershot plot that doesn’t actually go anywhere. There is a final burst of gory monster action towards the end, but by then the meandering story, the terrible performances, the unfunny humour and the clumsy pacing will probably have done for all but the hardiest of viewers.

Wasps have been poorly served by filmmakers in comparison to their chubbier associates the bee, and sadly Dragon Wasps is not the film to launch them into the upper echelons of creature feature royalty.

DAVID FLINT

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