Phase IV

[Andrew]

Scientists discover a race of super ants that can chew through metal and build skyscrapers.  Unfortunately, the humans' plan for establishing contact with the ants is to shoot at the ant city.

Click here to go to the Review

[Trevor]

Thanks for the great review, Andrew, I was seven when I saw this for the first time and I remember Stephen King's review of it in Danse Macabre: ["Saul] Bass' ants aren't even really big, they're just little buggers who've pulled together.":

"All you a-holes with magnifying glasses: stop giving the ants ideas."    

[DavidFullam]

Never liked this movie. Every review of it in magazines and reference books keep harping on how it is some kind of neglected classic. I'm like "whatever." I'd rather watch Them and Empire of the Ants.

[Chris McAvey]

Wasn't this movie riffed in one of the KTMA episodes of MST3K?

[mrgb46]

 :twirl:Yes,it is..Too bad they couldn't go back,like they did with the Gamera movies and redo this one.Would've been interesting to see what Mike and the bots could've done with it.

[Sardu]

I have found a mistake in your review.  At the end of paragraph three you wrote "(unless they are holding hands and singing)" when clearly what you meant to say was "(Especially when they are holding hands and singing)".

Please edit this.


Thank you.

[Trurl]

What if...what if regular everyday ants are smart because they do not build skyscrapers? What if Donald Trump is the idiot?

I like that- it echoes that line from Douglas Adams's the Hitchhiker's Guide, the one that goes (roughly paraphrased):

Man always considered himself smarter than dolphins because of all the great things he had accomplished; the wheel, New York City, that sort of thing, while all the dolphins did was muck about in the water having a good time.  Conversely, dolphins considered themselves superior for exactly the same reasons.

[Jay the Magnificent]

thought this movie was a bit too cerebral for the common movie watcher.
but notion of instant evolutionary uplift by way of cosmic rays is wacky taffy

very 70s 

[Andrew]

What if...what if regular everyday ants are smart because they do not build skyscrapers? What if Donald Trump is the idiot?

I like that- it echoes that line from Douglas Adams's the Hitchhiker's Guide, the one that goes (roughly paraphrased):

Douglas Adams was an incredible writer.  The characters were perhaps average, but he had a way of working little truths into his writing that make me laugh out loud.  Thank you much for that; it made my day.

Never liked this movie. Every review of it in magazines and reference books keep harping on how it is some kind of neglected classic. I'm like "whatever." I'd rather watch Them and Empire of the Ants.

thought this movie was a bit too cerebral for the common movie watcher.
but notion of instant evolutionary uplift by way of cosmic rays is wacky taffy

very 70s 

Unfortunately, the humans are shallow personalities.  The ants end up with more depth as characters.  The long sequence with the ants dragging the poison to the queen, and each dying in turn, had a lot of empathy.  For me, the scenes with the scientists interacting are mostly filler, and the young girl is entirely filler.  The scene where the scientists viewed the ant skyscrapers is awesome.  They needed more scenes like that and like the self-sacrificing poison retrieval.  That or extremely selfish scenes with the humans as counterpoint to the ants.

[Torgo]

I had seen this flick years ago but didn't know what it was called. 

[J.D.]

Oh this movie is awesome!

[Neville]

I saw it on my late teens, found it absolutely fascinating. I need to watch this again.

[BoyScoutKevin]

When I saw this, and I saw only the ending to it, I found it very cerebral. More so than most films. I don't know whether I liked it or not, as I said, I didn't see all of it. One of these days I'm going to have to see all of it, to see whether I liked it not.

[BZ]

OMG, thank you for this hilarious, insightful and totally spot-on review!  I haven't seen this movie for about 20 years, and I remember it as though it were yesterday.  Kinda just sticks with you!  I agree that it is a forgotten classic, as we all remember it so well, and apparently so would anyone else that watches it.
And yes, D.T. is an idiot!

[Flu-Bird]

Can never be as good as THEM this classic giant bug movie is the best