Special effects artist-turned-director Jamie Dixon's dull, made-for-cable sequel to 1999's BATS (1999) dispenses with the original's retro rampaging-wildlife formula in favor of tedious action-movie cliches.
A rogue mad scientist, Dr. Benton Walsh (Tomas Arana), is holed up in a bunker somewhere in Chechnya's Belzan Forest, creating weapons of mass destruction for rebel forces. The US military sends a Delta Force team led by stoic Jim Downey (Marty Papazian) to extract him before he upsets the balance of power among nations of the former Soviet Union. Downey's team includes hothead Russo (David Chokachi) and Russian-American operative Katya Zemenova (Pollyanna McIntosh), who's nursing a personal grudge against Walsh. The team is dropped in the forest and quickly discovers that Walsh's WMDs are actually GEBs: Genetically engineered bats with a craving for human flesh, no fear of daylight and the ability to change color like chameleons. Downey and his team rattle around the woods, bark tough guy dialogue at each other -- "We're Delta -- act like it!" -- at each other and fend off bat attacks that recall the swarming-by-crows death of schoolteacher Annie Hayworth in THE BIRDS (1963).
Pre-production teasers for this shot-in-Romania Sci Fi Channel original movie described a thriller set in Afghanistan, in which American soldiers in pursuit of a terrorist named Fazul are trapped in a maze of caves lousy with killer bats. Would that have been a better movie than the one that was eventually made? No-one will ever know, but this tedious follow up to a less-than-distinguished b-movie throwback highlights the original's decidedly modest virtues. In particular, BATS boasted genuinely impressive special effects, while HUMAN HARVEST is unconvincing CGI all the way. No-one demands complex characterizations or subtle thematic underpinnings of a bare-bones monster movie, but a decent monster is a must. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
