Dragon Wasps (2012)

Dragon Wasps is utterly idiotic and strangely enjoyable. It isn’t smart, clever, surprising, scary, thrilling or even very funny, but it is a ridiculous, cliché-riddled giant-beast film that is self-knowingly daft and an oddly likeable romp. Utter crap, but still somehow a good laugh.

The father of entomologist Gina Humphries (Dominika Juillet) has gone missing in the Belize rainforest and she – and her plucky assistant Rhonda (Nikolette Noel) – encourages army officer John Hammond (Corin Nemec) to escort them through the dangerous jungles in the vain hope her father hasn’t been eaten, shot, drowned or used as a hatchery for giant wasp-monsters.

Their problems escalate when Hammond runs into his very worst enemy in the world; the guerrilla voodoo gangster drug-lord badass Jaguar, who proceeds to unleash bullets all over Hammond’s rag-tag team of military people.

Unfortunately that isn’t the worst part of searching an uncharted jungle for your dad. Gina, Rhona and Officer Hammond also encounter DRAGON WASPS! What? I have no idea. Some kind of giant mutant bug that might’ve been genetically altered by the government but is definitely 100% a huge flying death machine. That can breathe fire.

Sounds insane? It is. Kind of. Coming from the writer of the surprisingly-fun Sand Sharks (Mark Atkins) and starring one of it’s stars (Corin Nemec) it’s easy to compare these two giant-monsters-on-the-loose movies. Unfortunately Dragon Wasps doesn’t have the same anarchic, self-knowing ridiculousness as Sand Sharks, which was a riotous piss-take aimed at the direction of Jaws. Dragon Wasps is like a crap episode of Sliders, with all the awful CGI and a distinct lack of Jerry O’Connell.

Corin Nemec was the best thing about Sand Sharks and is the best thing here too. Is he taking it seriously? Probably not. He seems like he’s having a great time, and his enjoyment is oddly infectious. Everyone else slaps on their po-faces and it makes it lovably silly, especially with the ridiculous characters on display here; the two unbelievable entomologist / scientists, the collection of unfit, rag-tag ‘soldiers’ and the frankly hilariously absurd one-eyed jungle-gangster called Jaguar.

Unfortunately the build up never pays off, with the Dragon Wasps merely being a background annoyance compared to the battle between John Hammond and Jaguar. The search for Gina’s father is a little lacklustre and mostly slips to the background whilst bullets fly, Jaguar spouts voodoo bollocks and Corin Nemec looks around wryly, wondering how he’s being paid to be in this mad shit.

“But what about the dragon wasps?! Are they awesome?!”! Of course not. They’re utterly awfully rendered CGI beasties that are mostly blurry, can change their size from second-to-second and have absolutely no purpose. Something about breeding. The one physical ‘model’ of a dragon wasp is hilariously awful and looks like a discarded prop from a cheap episode of the Power Rangers. It doesn’t even look like the CGI Dragon Wasps!

Unlike Sand Sharks – which has some memorable moments and should be watched in a group (a very drunk group) – unfortunately Dragon Wasps isn’t worthy of your attention, drunk or otherwise. It has a few fun moments and Nemec is excellent as always. This could’ve been hilariously terrible, but unfortunately it’s just forgettable rubbish…

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