"Bats" is an incredibly cheesy and horrid film starring Lou Diamond Phillips, who seems to have needed the money enough to sleepwalk through this clumsily written brain-dead stab at a "Nature Gone Wild Because Man Meddled" movie. It features a cast of forgettable characters, including the Mad Scientist who created the problem. The special effects could have saved the lame, cliche-laden story, if only they had been any good. The rubber bat puppets inspire only laughter, not fear or even revulsion. The logic gaps are amazing -- bats who can break through windows, chew through chickenwire, and pack enough of a punch to send people sailing trough the air when they impact, but can be easily outrun by people in heavy enviro-suits, people who have not slept in a couple of days.

Why waste ninety hard earned minutes on this dreck? I mean, really. So what if the bats are superintelligent and the next "perfect weapon" because the Scientist infected them with a tailored virus, transmittable instantly (but only to any species of bat)? Do the filmmakers really believe that I'm going to buy the hokey super-refrigeration device that the army puts down the abandoned mine before they're all killed? Can a Texas sheriff really hit a bat with every shot from his revolver while hiding under a pickup truck?


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