The island of Manhattan is quarantined when a mysterious virus sweeps through an airport turning innocent civilians into ravenous wolf-men. Nothing short of a nuclear blast can stop the monstrous virus... unless someone finds a cure.
Maj. Brian Hoffman (Craig Sheffer, Night Breed) a military infectious disease specialist is called in to consult. He meets patient zero Donna Voorhees (Ariana Richards, Jurassic Park) and Dr. Ellen Gordon (Kate Vernon, Battlestar Galactica ('04)) who are working towards a cure. Unfortunately Lt. Gen. Monning (Dennis Haysbert, Undercover) has plans to turn the virus into a military weapon and tries to sabotage all attempts at finding the cure.
This movie was SO close to being an amazing film, but writing choices seemed to always get in the way. Stellar cast, decent acting, and interesting filming, but certain lines were awkward and abrupt solutions to plot problems. It feels like a much longer film was edited, with skimpy one-liners filling in the gaps.
I also had a difficult time seeing Monning as threatening when I realized he was from the Allstate commercials, but that's my issue.
A couple of "oh shit" moments, mostly jump-scare attacks. One eye-roll moment when Hoffman conveniently found an overturned car full of weapons as he was driving past. It was not a military vehicle, and there was no way to see the weapons as he was driving. And the way he screeched to a halt, backed up *maybe* two feet, then ran thirty feet to the wreck was slightly ridiculous.
The wolf transformation CGI was not good enough for the closeups it received.
If you like grade C horror and just want something to throw popcorn at the screen, this is for you. If you appreciate good storytelling, I'd give it a pass.
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