When a bunch of Aliens’ and Predator’s stereotypes (the nerdy, softarsed one, the sexy-as-hell butch chick, the violently crazy one, the philosophical black guy etc) have gotten jobs as diamond prospectors, whilst they're at it encountering a shape-shifting mass of CGI ants that needs to steal people’s skeletons so it can get up and walk about. For some reason. You see, I don’t have a ruddy clue about the whys and wherefores of The Bone Snatcher. Being as most of the characters are Afrikaans, you need fucking subtitles to understand half the fucking words they say! Seriously, you may as well be watching a one man spoken word show by Klunk from Dastardly And Muttley for all the good it’ll do!
The bits and bats that do get through though aren’t gonna win The Bone Snatcher any awards, I can tell you. “What the hell is this place?” whispers namby-pamby systems analyst Zack to himself behind his horrid, bumfluff goatee… “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” ruminates the aggressive Carl, just in case you needed to be told. Along with butch-girl Mikki, there’s three totally incompatible characters stuck together in the desert, stuck together in a movie you’ve seen a thousand times before.
The monster isn’t too bad. It’s sort of horrible and black and movey-abouty, stripping peoples bones and then making them walk around, exploding in a burst of pixels every time it gets shot. It sees in a sort-of “pink-vision” – through rose tinted spectacles perhaps? Whatever, it’s no match for Predator’s kaleidoscopic acid-vision. The only way you can stop this unstoppable monster is by pouring petrol on the floor. And then not lighting it. Again for some reason that moi just can’t figure out. I don’t like being a spoilsport, but I could’ve saved us all a lot of trouble by simply using the time-honoured, most effective method of killing ants; pulling all their legs off and watching them bake in the sun. A billion kids can’t be wrong.
I’ll be the first to admit that I do like generic movies. The more generic, the better. But not if they’re generically shit. Not that The Bone Snatcher is shit shit, but there’s enough shit here to drown any amount of excitement that may be brewing within you. I’ve seen this stuff loads of times before, and I bet you have more than me. When the action hots up then it can be quite exciting, but there aren’t enough random explosions, stunts and pointless gun-firing to fill up the way-too-short action scenes. Gore is limited. Sex – non-existent. The desert location is fantastic, I must admit – sometimes it looks absolutely gorgeous – a large expanse of nothingness is the best thing about this movie.
There’s a twist ending too. I’d love to spoil it for you, but I can’t. Because I don’t understand it.
