Sci Fi Channel rolled out their new brand identity this week and are now, pointlessly, called Syfy, which is pronounced ‘sigh fi’ just exactly like Sci Fi was.
And to inaugurate their commitment to ‘Imagine Greater,’ despite continuing to be crushed beneath the woefully misinformed leadership of Bonnie Hammer, not only are they still airing Extreme Championship Wrestling (which may as well be thought of as science fiction because it sure the fuck isn’t wrestling) they are also gracing the screen with an insufferable piece of shit called Sand Serpents. Perhaps it might be more appropriately called GI Joe and The Tremors of Dune.
This resplendent glittering jewel in the new Syfy crown is about two hours that you will never ever get back and stars Jason Gedrick as Lieutenant Stanley who, for a variety of tedious and uninteresting reasons, ends up as the unofficial leader of a small ‘platoon’ (if four people can be called a platoon) trying to survive in the wilds of a Canadian rock quarry. I mean Afghanistan. Sorry. Gedrick is no stranger to high action military adventure, having stunned audiences in the 1980s with the gritty realism of Iron Eagle and Iron Eagle II.
Rounding out the cast is Elias Toufexis as Private Andrews, an unprofessional smart-mouth and a thoroughly whiny punk-ass bitch who, by even the vaguest of military standards would have been sent home with a dishonourable discharge after he said about two words; Sebastian Knapp as Gary Sinise in A Midnight Clear portrays Private Kaminsky (because you need to have someone with a Slavic-style name to shout out – ‘Wierzbowski! Wierzbowski!’); and finally Tamara Hope plays Captain Henle which, of course, immediately begs the question ‘Why isn’t the Captain in charge?’ Are they not familiar with the chain of command or the meaning of rank insignia? It hardly seems to matter, though, since the incorrect uniforms, incorrect haircuts and unacceptable facial hair, non-military issue glasses and the lack of anything like discipline, all point to the fact that the military advisor must have been someone who probably watched part of Saving Private Ryan once. Or knows someone who did.
The central premise of the film is explained by Captain Henle: ‘The Taliban blew up a mine about twenty klicks from here. We think it may have ruptured some kinda prehistoric chamber or something.’ This critical plot point is delivered with all of the enthusiasm one typically reserves for epic, Palm d’Or winning statements such as ‘I must have left the toilet lid up.’
(As a point of logic – oh yes, there’s room for logic even in here – one must consider how blowing up a mine would make any possible difference? The worms – or Sand Serpents – are clearly quite capable of manoeuvring unimpeded through the lithic terrain, including, it seems, through the very bedrock, so why would exposing ‘some kinda prehistoric chamber’ release them? They aren’t really ‘sand’ serpents, per se. The nature of sand is such that, like water, it displaces – with some resistance – to an object moving through it. Rocks and gravel, on the other hand, in a word, don’t. And here there is no ‘sand’ to be seen.)
‘Here’ is defined as an old abandoned warehouse or a disused refinery, perhaps it’s just a burnt-out multi-storey car park, somewhere deep in the rugged mountainous region of Canadafghanistan (shot with heavy-handed yellow filters and de-saturated colours to accentuate the feeling of a hot desert region and give it that real ‘foreign country’ look) where the troops have been lead to relative safety by Lieutenant Stanley. They are shown all the comforts of a bombed-out big cement building by some Afghan guy (who is not a terrorist) called Amal and his daughter Isla (also not a terrorist) who are the only ones left behind after the Taliban stopped by earlier in the day to round up people to tie bombs to. There are also five other Afghan women there with whom, we must imagine, Amal is going to single-handedly repopulate the New Afghanistan when this whole silly war thing is over and if they aren’t all eaten by giant Sand Serpents.
Amal has an old radio, which doesn’t work, but explains that he has an ‘old truck’ (which looks suspiciously like a 2008 Chevy Avalanche) which our heroes can use to get them to the next big cement building that might have some working radio parts – so long as he and Isla can go along for the ride. There’s always a catch.
No sooner are the group on the road when the Sand Serpents come after them. Or so it would seem. Because of the mesmerising, star-studded cast, the exotic locale, and the expensive big cement buildings, the CGI would have probably pushed the budget for this film into the stratosphere of the high four figures, so the visuals of the worms are kept to a minimum. Instead we rely on wobbly camera shots, occasional editing, and the reactions of the actors to relay the sense of horror at seeing the giant predators coming after them.
‘Give em sumthin to chew on!’ says Lt Stanley from the drivers seat of the ‘old’ 2008 Chevy as they trundle down a gravel road. Everyone begins throwing grenades and wasting precious ammunition firing at something only they can see as the camera dollies in and out and tracks along side of or behind the vehicle. ‘Oh-ho! Got that sucker! Yea! Nailed it! Yea! Eat it!’ exclaims Private Andrews after throwing an IED at and presumably killing something off screen.
‘We’re losin em!’ Gary Sinise cries reassuringly. I believe he was talking about the Sand Serpents but, as we don’t actually see them, it’s hard to be sure.
Once they reach their destination and think they are safe, another worm rises up over a big cement building. Thinking fast, Gary Sinise throws an IED into its gaping mouth and blows it up real good with a spray of clear gelatine.
‘Great,’ Lt Stanley grumbles because he got worm goo on him. ‘Just great.’ Not a ‘Hey, thanks for killing the giant fucking Shai-Hulud knock-off creature before it killed us’ or anything, just piss and moan because the uniform got messy.
Using the battery from their ‘old’ 2008 Chevy, Captain Henle at last manages to fix the otherwise junk radio and radios for help, all very military-like: ‘Black Dog requesting immediate evac.’
She (Black Dog) eventually gets through to someone called Colonel Jones who looks like he’s having a difficult time pinching off a stubborn turd – bobbing up and down in his chair and peeking out of the tent opening at the ‘intense fire-fight’ going on just outside to his left, which would be the three guys doing the Axl Rose crab dance back and forth in the background to the sounds of occasional small arms fire. Colonel Jones goes on to conversationally explain that, sorry, evac will be ‘when it suits this command’ and, as such, will not be possible at this time because all of his ‘flights’ are grounded or in use and it could take up to two hours to get free from their current attack, but thanks for calling and have a great day.
In a cunning plot twist – and a decisive move which changes everything – Captain Henle grabs the handset back from Lt Stanley (who was crying about giant worms being after them) and tells Colonel Jones that ‘the mine’ – the one the Taliban blew up –‘was operational.’ Oh yes, that’s right, and she has a bag full of ‘kremlin’ to prove it. Or ‘Crinoline.’ Or maybe it’s ‘gremlin.’ Anyway, whatever it is she slurs into the radio, Colonel Jones suddenly realises that he must get these four soldiers out of harm’s way. He orders Henle and her men to a ridge ‘about one klick southwest of your twenty’ (gosh, that sounds so cool!) where he will, in approximately thirty minutes, divert a Blackhawk to pick them up.
Lt Stanley translates her slur and responds: ‘Corudnum?’ I believe he meant to say ‘Corundum’ because Henle just passes this off by saying ‘Oh, it’s, uhm, sapphires.’
This, of course, was simply a ruse on her part to have got Colonel Jones to agree to divert critical resources from a major conflict and rescue them from the eminent danger of being inside a big cement building.
Half a dozen Taliban members arrive (on foot it seems) and begin firing at the big cement building (as if they know the soldiers are in there) and of course the weapons fire draw the giant worms who gobble up the yummy Taliban. ‘They’re driving them away,’ Henle informs everyone. I suppose being eaten by giant worms could be called ‘driven away,’ yes.
There is an energy and a pace to most of these scenes which make Ben Stein seem like Robin Williams on a coke-fuelled rant.
Gary Sinise takes a grenade blast to the chest and, as the group make their escape to a cave (which will apparently get them to the ridge one klick southwest of their twenty in record time – and, yeah, who wouldn’t want to go inside the earth where there’s no place to run away when the giant worms who live inside the earth come after you?), and, as he is dragged to safety, he leaves an unnaturally large trail of blood which, along with all the pounding feet and yelling, draws the attention of the worms. He is then dumped by his fellow soldiers and left to wallow in agony on the ground and is promptly eaten, sparing him the last 40 minutes of the film.
Switching on the electric lights inside the tunnels (though Lt Stanley still finds it necessary to use his miniature flashlight in a manly way despite the glowing 300 watt bulbs overhead) Amal leads the three remaining soldiers and Isla through remarkably well-kept, though incongruously dust-filled, ‘ancient’ chambers and then, in a brilliant piece of script-writing, he steps on a land mine and goes boom.
This, as you may well have guessed by now, rather conveniently collapses the only part of the tunnel which leads to the only way out and traps our heroes between a pile of rubble and a now closed ‘blast door’ which some idiot felt was a good idea in the middle of a fucking tunnel. Thank the gods that Lt Stanley discovers an air shaft that leads to the outside. Don’t all airshafts lead to the outside? That’s why they are called ‘air shafts.’ And don’t all secret tunnels have strategically placed air shafts that only children – like the now conveniently orphaned Isla who burdensomely came along for the adventure – can climb through? Perhaps children dug these air shafts and learned how to do all the fine intricate masonry work lining them as well. This is Afghanada, after all. Child labour laws are much different there.
When the worms begin to attack – which, frankly, I just didn’t see coming, not in the safety of the tunnels! – Private Andrews asks, ‘What did we do to deserve this?’
Captain Henle tells him he must have done something ‘and the rest of us are just paying for it.’
Can I get a witness? Somebody say ‘Amen!’
Once outside the air shaft, Isla almost immediately gets caught by the Taliban, who apparently don’t notice the ground shaking wildly like the American soldiers do in the tunnels below the surface. When they finally do realise something is wrong, Isla runs back into the tunnels and slowly unlocks the ‘blast door.’ Thankfully, the worms break into the tunnels and Andrews is eaten, leaving Stanley and Henle to run away without their privates.
Hmm…
Stanley and Henley escape the tunnels only to discover that their ‘extraction point’ is just over the next ridge. Of course it is. Just beyond where the giant worms are busily munching on little screaming Taliban treats. Captain Henle then suddenly remembers that worms don’t have eyes and that they rely on sound and vibration to locate their prey. So why not throw grenades at them and divert them as she and Stanley and Isla run away? She then spots a ‘big structure over there’ (apparently a mining elevator) which, when climbed, will get them out of harm’s way because the tower ‘has gotta be, like a hundred and the worms are sixty, right?’
Lt Stanley agrees.
It seems that this little Army of Fun have no true sense of scale, as one would presume that these so-called Sand Serpents are substantially more than 60 feet long. If one guesses the military vehicle in this shot to be an average of 15 to 18 feet in length, that would make the worms some 150 to 180 feet (not including the bits we cannot see below ground). So I’m thinking that a climb to the top of a 100 foot tower would put our tasty heroes directly at dining level.
Deciding that the best course of action is to lob grenades in every possible direction and run for the ‘extraction point,’ Lt Stanley and Capt Henle (and Isla) do just that, arriving in time to nearly be lunch for two worms. Of course the diverted Blackhawk appears at that very moment and fires a missile at a worm and, probably, kills it. I say probably because in the next shot there is no worm – or worms – just a cloud of smoke in the air where the worm had been in the previous shot.
In a typical Jason Voorhees moment, one of the worms (the one that didn’t probably die just seconds before) lunges out of the quarry to strike at the departing Blackhawk and, in a stunning yet thoroughly pointless move to assure he won’t be in a potential sequel, Lt Stanley takes a belt of C4 and leaps from the helicopter and into the gaping maw of the Sand Serpent where he detonates the charge in a slow motion spray of clear gelatinous goo.
Obviously, there was no other way. The chopper could never make it to the safety of 180 feet or defend itself like it did when it blasted the other worm entirely out of the previous edit. It had to be done.
Really, though, anything I can tell you about this film would only pale in comparison to the video for the main theme song (featuring Gary Sinise) which, to my way of thinking, captures some of the same effervescent magic – the sheer inescapable joy and buoyancy – of the song ‘Sweet Freedom’ sung by Michael McDonald for the 1986 film Running Scared starring Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines…
