Antibody (2002)

Perfect cast and a good story

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

I've seen this movie (in the German, lip-synchronized version) for the first time on the German Sci Fi Channel tonight, and my impression after seeing it was that the script for this movie must have probably fit on a napkin. As a German, I was doubly offended by this movie, because it unintentionally portrays a parallel world version of Germany in which human rights and freedom of press do not exist. Did they fear that droves of US-Americans would have wanted to emigrate to Germany, had they shown it like it really is? The "German" "police outfits" were simply green overalls with green baseball caps. The clichés (or fears) of uninformed US-Americans about Germans were largely satisfied (bold, mean, Nazi-like, etc.), everything a US tourist could fear that could happen to him/her (being arrested for no reason, having no right to call a lawyer, etc.). That the filmmakers did not even bother to get informed about Germany is speaking volumes about this movie.Other bad aspects about the movie are the boring visuals (even in the CG scenes), as if only a couple of blood cells would bumble along the blood vessels, and the thin storyline. Oftentimes CG scenes were cut between acting scenes that were entirely unrelated to each other (like, when they discover the sender device, no image of it is shown, instead some outside fighting scenes showing the vessel). The disarmament scene is only partially shown (when the CIA guy wants to remove the numbered pylons from the chip, only a second of it is shown, then the film jumps to the next scene), ruining even the final scenes.This movie certainly deserves a number of Golden Raspberries...

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All CostsDr Richard Gaynes (Lance Henriksen) is a bomb disposal expert for the FBI.That is,until a terrible mistake forces him to resign his post and a few years later,he becomes a surveillance man.When a team of terrorists seize control of a building,a shoot out ensues and the head man is shot.However,medics must battle to keep him alive,as he has placed a detonating device inside himself that,should he die,will cause a massive explosion.The renowned Dr Theodore Bichall (Valizer Binev) has a secret underground science lab where he is working on a revolutionary new technology that will allow Gaynes and a team of scientists lead by Dr Rachel Saverini (Robin Givens) to enter the terrorist's body by means of a small ship and deactivate the detonating device.With time running out,Gaynes and his team must battle to deactivate the device before it's too late.This film originally caught my eye in the video store.I checked the back,and the concept sounded very intriguing,especially being one for a straight-to-video movie.I can't remember exactly how recently this was,but it certainly arrived on these shores a fair while after it's original year of release,2002.However,upon starting to watch it,I was able to pick something up very quickly.Aside from dealing with the bomb,somewhere another agent who is in close contact with Gaynes must deal with an Islamic man who is waving a gun in the air and singing something that sounds like a religious hymn (well,it don't sound like The Fast Food Song,that's for sure).There is talk that the man might have a detonating device of his own implanted in his body that will cause the present bomb to go off.And from here on in,the hidden symbolism becomes very clear.This is very September 11th themed,right down to the idea of suicide bombers and the general threat of terrorism that had become very present in the world.It would be easy to say that the main plot of the movie has notable plot holes,but then it could be making a point of how true it is in the world today,like,of course terrorists would be able to sneak in to an important venue where an important speech is about to be delivered disguised as video equiptment installer men.Er,yeah maybe they would.It seems like not a day goes by where the tabloids don't feature stories of lax security at important venues and undercover reporters getting in as such and such (the British tabloids,anyway.)It kind of feels like the film jumped on the backwagon of the public conscious and the fears of the public one year after those terrible events and seems to be engaging in a spot of the IL' cynical exploitation.Aside from this,much of the film just ends up lost anyway.It appears very cheaply filmed,and full of no-name Russian actors with funny sounding names on account of the barely there budget.They're very bad no-name actors too (well,there you go) and they turn in some very bad,blank acting.Throw into that a patchy,ineffective script and an increasingly far-fetched,ridiculous plot and the only thing the movie ultimately leaves you with is perhaps a desire for a remedy against any future bad films.**

Echoing the majority of comments here, this is a horrible ripoff of 'Fantastic Voyage'. With the exception of a few lines added for comic relief, the film as someone else suggested would be best used as fodder for a revived film-spoofing voice-over show. Robbin Givens and the newscaster looked a bit pleased to be seen in anything, but the rest of the cast seemed to be in pain (understandably). Heinricksen appears to have a hemorrhoid problem during his FBI review, or maybe he is just looking for the stage exit door to escape his agreement to do this film. It seems every opportunity was taken to waste chances to choose logical, practical, entertaining or otherwise valuable approaches to each scene. Some of the most ludicrous: seats with no harnesses, Star Wars fighting within the blood vessels, a terrorist who wakes up but does not even flinch during during several deep needles in the neck as he pretends to sleep, and the entire 'deactivation' of the detonator scene! Why did Zabka leave Mr. Miagi behind--we needed him to kick this one into the trash!

While I admit that this movie left something to be desired in the way of story and direction, the fact that Lance Henriksen was cast proved that the best actors can often times save the worst movies. I also must state my displeasure at seeing this on the SCi-Fi channel. This movie, I feel could have been better had the SciFi channel not gotten ahold of it. It had potential, but alas it was never meant to be.