 In 1997, James Cameron had hit box office gold with Titanic with the help of visual effects supervisor John Bruno. John Bruno was actually the guy behind the scenes for a lot of classic films including Ghostbusters, Temple of Doom, and even Batman Returns. So, as a way to return the favor, James Cameron and Gail Anaheird both gave John Bruno the budgetary means to make the sci-fi horror film classic virus. This film has so many issues, so many redundancies, so many absolute reasons to hate this film that that's why it's the first film in our series of Masters of Disaster. So the film begins with a Russian ship trying to find that diamond that a certain bitch dropped off the back of another Russian ship a couple years prior. They're actually communicating with their space station, which just so happens to have a discount Russian Ed Harris, just as it's being attacked by a leftover visual effect from the abyss. So the ship comes to an electrifying end, taking everyone with it, and then... Oh, it sounds like the South Pacific really needs an oil change. It's here we are introduced to our main characters, played by Jimmy Lee Curtis, Donald Sutherland, and, uh, Baldwin that isn't Alec Baldwin. I guess they just looked into the bargain bin and pulled out what they thought was best. We also see that Donald Sutherland is taking the Bob Hoskins from Super Mario Brothers movie approach to acting. Three fingers of whiskey for every page of script. I've got eyes for Christ's sakes. You know what doesn't bode well for your film when the most respected actor in your crew clearly has no faith in this film? He was probably doing this for bail money to get Keith or out of jail again. And in the midst of this typhoon they are pulling a large haul of cargo, which really wants to get out of this film. They're a poor little boat, the sea star. Oh god, the sea star? Really? It's like calling your penis little trout. Either way, the sea star is being pulled under by the cargo and Baldwin suggests that they cut it loose. Donald Sutherland then slurs out this. The cargo is mine. I've leveraged everything I own against it. And it's not ensured. The cargo then decides to get the hell out of this movie as quickly as possible and lets itself be dragged down to the bottom of the ocean. They then find temporary relief in the eye of the storm. Oh look, Donald Sutherland decided to stop drinking offscreen and decided to drink onscreen. From what I heard, this actually isn't film footage. This is what he looked like after he saw a working cut of the film. He contemplates bud wiring himself, but then they come across the Russian ship and he decides to go up on deck to take a look. They believe the ship to be deserted, so they climb on board and start looking around. Oh look, the movie's trying to be scary with horn noises. Okay, adding horn noises to anything doesn't make it scary. It makes it look stupid. Watch. See, it's not scary. They come across the bridge and find it completely empty. Probably just like the theaters were on opening day. They then start contemplating how much they could get from salvage or even giving the ship back to the Russians in exchange for money. It seems that the sea star crew got their monetary value lessons from that of pawn stars. $300 million. $300 million. Ten percent of that is $30 million. That's what's coming our way. So they decide to turn the ship on and therefore turn on the squealing pig virus machine. Good job, Becky. You lit us up like a pinball machine. So right after Billy Baldwin and his little Cuban buddy start looking around the ship, their own ship, the sea star, is sunk by mysterious. Okay, if you want to try and build tension or thriller in the movie, you don't reveal who's doing the shit right off the bat. Like, why does it even need to use the cameras to look at the ship? Next you're going to tell me that this virus thing is going to have to use a keyboard. Oh my God. During this crisis, Billy Baldwin decides to go up on deck to save the crew while leaving his little Cuban buddy down below. I wonder who's going to die first. And he's gone. After the sinking incident, they take one of their crew up to the medical bay to patch him up. It's at this point then that Donald Sutherland then pulls a cracker from out of nowhere. I have absolutely no idea where he got this from. It's probably been in his jacket pocket for weeks. Actually, no. I think he probably stole it from the last Catholic church he visited along with all the communion wine. It's at this point they are then attacked by the team fortress Pyro who actually turns out to be the Russian woman who survived the giant Tesla coil attack. She reveals that the space entity that attacked the space station in the beginning of the film is actually some sort of super space virus which has taken control of the ship and is now trying to get to land so then it can take over all intelligent life. Okay, this is the thing. We're probably Donald Sutherland and Wilfrn Brimley and we've got the fucking thing going on. And this isn't the only reference I'm going to make to that movie. There's a few. Meanwhile, Richie and Woods are down below and they come across a hive of machinery. Now admittedly, this part was actually kind of cool. I thought the animatronics were really creative and had a lot of cool ideas to them. The problem is they have no character. It's basically as though they got all the golf kids from the IT department and said, you know what? Drop your worst nightmare. Let's do it. Let's just put it there. Let's put it on the film. Yeah, let's do it. It's the Terminator. Run! After a brief gun battle, Richie and Woods bring up the Lecutis of Borg up onto the bridge. It turns out it was actually the Russian lady's husband turned into some monstrous Borg entity. What is this thing that's inside the computer, huh? It's a life form. Unlike anything we know, not cellular but electrical in nature. Extremely intelligent. Donald Sutherland then perfectly describes what everyone else thought of this film. Listen to a pile of Russian rubbish. You know what? He's inspired me. I'm going to take the lessons that I've learned from that man and apply them to my own life. Then all of a sudden that storm that they were hiding from reappears quite suddenly and then we get a bunch of really obvious model shots. In all the chaos they try to get to the engine room but then quite possibly the best part of the movie happens. After Woods gets quite appropriately stated fisted, the crew take cover in another part of the ship and then Jamie Lee Curtis does something that we've wanted her to do ever since this turkey started. Now they do something that I thought they would have done much earlier on in this film is they try to communicate with the virus. That this movie is garbage? Yeah, we already caught on to that a long time ago. After a short conversation with the entity, they are interrupted by Steve. Wow, I guess I know where they got the inspiration for those Jurassic Park three scenes now. Now one of the very many things that ticks me off about this movie is the consistency of the storm. Whenever they go out on the outside of the ship, it's battered in the crap out of them. But when they go back inside the ship is calm. That's not how storms work people. They should be twirling around like a friggin washing machine. Now that Sutherland has been deposed and quite possibly run out of whiskey, he must now become whiskey Sutherland, the dominant life form, the king of the rubbish. After having communicated with the entity, Richie quite suddenly loses his shit. It's quite out of nowhere and they don't really comment on that at all. He just goes nuts. It's gone postal, man. But then they come up with the idea that the only way to destroy the virus is by destroying the main computer, which is within the ship. They have to go to the outside of the ship to get to the computer, where that storm is just conveniently waiting for them, and sucks Heco off the boat. But then they find that the main computer is gone, so they decide to blow up the ship anyways. But before they can do that, they find Donald Sutherland, who has now got quite a bit of an upgrade. Except he's still drunk. He's like the whiskey of Borg. But then Curtis uses some thermite grenades they found earlier and puts Donald Sutherland out of his booze, whiskey-soaked misery. And you know what? He's actually probably the greatest loss of this film. He was entertaining. But then they are cornered by the evil gothic cousin of ED209 and Jamie Lee Curtis is kidnapped. Then the computer does something incredibly stupid. Instead of killing her or assimilating her brain, it decides to torture her. Because you know, she has information that it couldn't just suck out of your brain. Because we've already seen it can do that. Oh yeah, and remember how I said earlier that it was stupid that the computer needs to use cameras to look at things? Well look, it's using that keyboard now. Even this spooky advanced virus still isn't compatible with Windows Vista. But literally, less than two minutes of conversation later, Billy Baldwin and a Russian lady come in and try to save the day. Their guns, however, are ineffective until Richie appears. And once again, to add on to the myriad of problems with this film, that scene was completely pointless. She was just basically tortured by an ineffective version of Robohan's Gruber. Where is the detonator? They then get chased around the ship by the evil ED209. Mate. Cheeky bitch. Okay movie, how many times are you going to make me reference the thing? This is getting really annoying now. Poor old Richie gets killed by a piece of shrapnel and the Russian lady sacrifices herself in an attempt to stop the creature. However, that still doesn't stop it. But before Richie can exit this film and pick up his check, he has to explain a convenient rocket sled he made while he was crazier earlier. So as the bomb that Richie made to destroy the ship is counting down, Jamie Lee Curtis and Billy Baldwin think about making their escape. However, the sled is only made for one person. Because who would want to save a Baldwin anyways? But then Jamie Lee Curtis says, well, you know what, fuck it. The rest of this movie is dumb. Let's just do one more thing. So they both fly off on the sled to safety and the ship explodes killing the virus. Then they are found by the Aussies. Oh look, Nico survived. That's kind of a surprise. Oh look, it's a twist horror ending. God, I needed one more of those. Fuck this movie. Then much like Jurassic Park, they fly off into the sunset. I can only assume the Aussies took them to Maccas. And that was virus. Holy shit, it's awful. This is a film that is so universally paned not only by the critics, but by people who worked on it. Jamie Lee Curtis has even stated that this is a film that she deeply regrets making and admits that it's a piece of garbage. The film performs so badly that John Bruno never got another gig as a director. He's done a few visual effects jobs here and there, but his reputation was entirely tarnished by this film. And you can't really blame it. The action is cliche, the characters are awful, and the horror is void of any tension. This was a straight up run of the mill late 90s horror film that tried to make a quick buck, but completely fucked up with the budget. And instead of hoping to get a lot of money, they put a lot of money into it and obviously that didn't pay off. And that was the first episode of Masters of Disaster, everyone. Thank you for watching. I really hope you enjoyed this. This is something that I've wanted to do for a very long time. I remember buying this movie from a dollar store like a decade ago and thinking, you know what, one day I'll do a video talking about how shitty this movie is. Now I have and now I can throw it the fuck away. So I hope you guys enjoyed and please comment below, talk about anything that you think we could improve on, or just say what you liked about it. Thank you guys for watching. I'll see you next time.