Customer Reviews

Mammoth

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There have been a lot of movies where a prehistoric beast is thawed/discovered/created just so it can go around killing people but this one is different and more original than most. After five years of study a frozen mammoth comes back to life after the museum is struck by a meteor. But if you payed attention to the wonderful dancing cave paintings in the credits, you will have a better understanding of the alien involvement in this event. Said mammoth goes on a rampage and sucks out people's life force (like the creature in Stephen King's Cat's Eye). Only the scientist studying it and his crazy family have any chance of stopping the beast. Add a couple of government agents to the mix and you have a pretty good movie.

Tom Skerritt is excellent as the UFO conspiracy believing patriarch of the dysfunctional family. The agents are well played as are most of the remaining recurring characters. As the film progresses we see that this story is bigger than just the events in the film. A pair of strange minor characters give a glimpse into the bigger picture. Even the ending is above normal for a prehistoric killer film. While not Jurassic Park this film has a unique take on the idea. The mammoth looks almost like a zombie due to its long freeze (now there's an idea). My only problem is a couple of scenes where the mammoth shows up out of nowhere suddenly but otherwise I had a real good time with this one. Check it out.

This tongue-in-cheek film is a gem. Filled with jokes poking fun at other sci-fi staples, characters, and themes, it also packs some surprise plot twists and moments. The actors were top notch and fun to watch. At points where it looks like the movie is going to drag, something always pops up to surprise and delight. If you want a serious horror film or don't like comedy mixed with your thrills, this isn't the movie for you. But if you enjoy a rollercoaster ride of great chills, unexpected moments, quirks, and laughs, this is a wonderful choice.

When you think of a movie about mammoths, you might not think of flying saucers, reanimated corpses, or 1950s-style sensibilities. But then, you're not director Tim Cox.

It all starts with a little blue pill. No not THAT pill - this one can wake up an elephant. Ahem. Never mind.

Anyway, a mammoth discovered perfectly preserved in a hunk of ice at a museum in Blackwater, Louisiana. Dr. Frank Abernathy (Vincent Ventresca) has noted the little blue pill in scans of the ice that have been otherwise undetected by the scientific community and decides to take a sample - which sets off a homing device. A flying saucer fires a sphere from space through the beginning credits, which smashes right into the mammoth, reanimating it. From there the mammoth goes on a rampage, goring, smashing, and sucking the souls of its victims through its snout.

Yes, you read that right. The undead mammoth sucks up souls like one of those mastodon vacuums on the Flintstones. Your opinion of this feature hinges on whether or not you take Mammoth seriously - which is pretty hard to do when, at one point, Abernathy uses the blue pill to lure the mammoth and it rises up silently a second later.

Or the Evil Dead detour, in which every hand joke is crammed into a scene with an animated hand.

Or the Men in Black in-jokes where two government agents (Leila Arcieri and Marcus Lyle Brown) wear dark suits, carry ray guns, and cover up evidence of an alien invasion.

Or the direct references to Empire Strikes Back, War of the Worlds (original and remake), The Blob, and Night of the Living Dead.

Like all good monster movies, the heart of the film isn't about the monster at all. Somewhere between the in-jokes is a tale about a scientist, his estranged daughter (played by Summer Glau, a bit too old for the part but still lovely) and his estranged father (Tom Skerritt in a great comedic turn).

On its surface, this is just another monster movie entry. But the director decided to enjoy himself by making a 1950s monster movie homage, which is a different but related beast. If you're a fan of classic sci-fi, schlock horror, or Summer Glau, Mammoth's for you. Just don't expect much from the elephant.

In the pantheon of frozen monster comedies, "Mammoth" is one of the most outlandish. The film is played straight, but amazingly while the extras allude to it providing a bit of humor, they also claim it's scary. They got that half right. The film opens with one of the most ridiculous fake science scenes in history (or since the 1950s, anyway,) and rapidly progresses to an even more ludicrous credit sequence. Vincent Ventresca plays annoying Dr. Frank Abernathy, a scatterbrained Mammoth scientist who can't get his personal life in order. Summer Glau plays his petulant daughter Jack, whose sixteenth birthday is one to remember, while the generally talented Tom Skerritt entertainingly plays his UFO and conspiracy-crazed father, Simon.

The film can't seem to make up its mind if it's a spoof or not, but it can't be taken seriously as anything else. To crank the plot up, a meteor streaks across the sky and hits the mammoth that's preserved in a giant ice cube in the town of Blackwater, Louisiana. How a small, backwards town got such an impressive natural history museum is left to your imagination. What you'll wish was left to your imagination are the special effects, which are beyond laughable. You will be surprised (or not) to see the mammoth come to life and escape, but not before sucking the life force out of the janitor in a unique trunk-to-nose spectacle. (Think "Ghostbusters" but infinitely less scary.)

Frank arrives home and is mad at his dad for giving Jack his old VW Bug because he wanted to give her a hybrid. (Oh, please.) Jack is, of course, mad at her father for coming home late despite the fact that his museum just blew up and his mammoth just came back to life and escaped after a UFO landed on it. (Certainly taking your driving test is more important than that.) Government secret agents soon show up (of course) on direct orders of the President. (Ponder.) While this is the moment Skerritt knew was coming, the plot goes in seach of Jack who has escaped to the worst teen party ever filmed in the middle of a forest. It's inevitable that the party and escaped mammoth plotlines must converge, and indeed they do. After discovering that a Taser won't stop a mammoth, one of the agents loses his head while the other remains cool as a cucumber.

The mammoth goes on a rampage and I am sad to report interrupts the most revolting automotive romance scene in film history. While backwoods Sheriff Marion Morrison (Charles Carroll) immediately grasps the enormity of the alien conspiracy, a guy in an ape suit enters and leaves the story quickly and pointlessly. The film makes clear that "the current administration" (that would be Bush, of course) will nuke the town if they don't get a handle on the mammoth-UFO co-conspirators quickly. Skerritt joins the pursuit and battle (I swear) outfitted in a welder's mask, and brandishing a mace and a garbage can lid as an improvised sword and shield. (You'd have thought a lifetime conspiracy nut would be better prepared.)

All this leads to one of the singularly most amusing scenes in history. The town coroner and Sheriff Morrison let the rest of the cast on a secret: stored cryogenically in an official freezer ("Hands Off!") is a frozen human hand, formerly belonging to the coroner. That's not the good part. The hand, when microwaved on the popcorn setting, comes to life and uses American Sign Language to threaten the Earth. This scene is precious enough to earn the film three stars on its own for loopy humor. The agent gets it out of the oven with tongs, tazes it, then uses her Blackberry's tricorder app to scan the hand. Entertaining pontification ensues: "How do you explain the zombie soul-sucking effect?," and "Do you mean to say this is intergalactic OnStar?," or how about "We have an alien-possessed mammoth on the loose and if we don't stop it the government's going to kill all of us!"

As a sweet sixteen gift after confronting "the hand goblin," Frank lets his daughter decide the fate of the world. Her decision is made easier when her boyfriend is impaled by a mammoth tusk, so they decide to lure the creature to a metal smelter. (No, really.) They first try pouring molten steel on him to no effect, but Skerritt shows up with a tanker truck of liquid nitrogen and they decide to flash freeze him instead. Sadly, in a cruel twist of fate Skerritt is also frozen in "a state of perfect hibernation," leaving the option of a sequel open with the obligatory "The End?"

The DVD includes a modestly interesting "making of" feature. Glau has an extremely inflated opinion of the film, while Skerritt is notably less enthuiastic. Despite its occasional attempts at being a horror movie (a trait that is oddly emphasized in the extras) this really is more of a spoof, with elements from many earlier monster movies incorporated. The principal problem is that the characters (except loony Skerritt) are not likeable; combine that with a relative dearth of acting ability on the set, and a plot that wants to be all things to all people, "Mammoth" doesn't really succeed at doing anything well. It's enjoyable as single-viewing B-movie entertainment, but there are many better creature features and comedies out there.

I first saw this on the Sci-Fi Channel. I was bored on a rainy Saturday, and couldn't find anything that looked more interesting. I was expecting the typical monster-comes-to-life-and-eats-the-world kind of thing, but I was very pleasantly surprised. This is head & shoulders above the usual B-monster movies. And it has a surprising amount of subtle comedy, as well.
I won't give away any details, but it's well worth buying at a used price. Try it. You won't be disappointed.

"Mammoth"(2006) was directed by Tim Cox. This isn't a big budget action sci-fi movie. Its budget was modest and so the story focuses on the quirky humour and characters rather than on blowing us away with special effects, and for this reason the film was a pleasant surprise. Tom Skerritt, Summer Glau, Leila Arcieri, and Vicent Ventresca star in this film about a museum mammoth that is brought back to life and terrorizes a town.

This DVD looks surprisingly fine on a big screen tv. The colors are rich and the blacks are deep. Even the clarity is very good.

While I bought this movie only because Summer Glau (Sarah Connor Chronicles The Terminator), it turned out to be quite good. If you enjoy the monster resurrected and wreaking havoc genre, pick it up. It fits the bill and is a pleasant way to spend a few hours.

This is one of those movies that is SO bad it is actually good. The section that I like the most is the part where the hand is put into a microwave and taps on the glass. That entire section of the movie is one where you will laugh out loud. Also, who can resist a Summer Glau movie?

Ok like the title of my review says, This movie is about a woolly Mammoth that is frozen in a giant block of ice in a museum, an alien space craft crashing into the monster and brings it back to life and gives it the ability to suck the soul out of its victim....i drool at plots like this Being a Crappy Monster movie Enthusiast.

Professor: "Oh Dear God..."
Sheriff: "God is for Sunday son....today we pray to Nike....RUN!!!"

Usually Sci Fi channel movies are heavy with the cheese, sparse with the plot, and graphics that make someone born after '80 cringe. And yes Mammoth give us a completely ridiculous plot; a mammoth that had been possessed by an alien right before it was flash-freezed defrosts in modern day and wrecks havoc. But the acting is amazing, the cheese is sweet and you'll love the characters, especially Vincent Ventresca's Dr. Frank, like they're your social awkward best friend.
I'm keeping back only one star because the DVD lacks any kind of special features, in spite of it's UNRATED proclamation, and it doesn't have any subtitles. I love subtitles so this is more a personal choice than an overall criticism. But when you think about it, in this inclusive genre and era not having subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing Sci-Fi lovers is just lazy.