I saw this movie once before, 10 years ago or so, but it didn't make much of an impact on me. I decided to give it another chance for thos year's challenge and try to pay more attention to it this time.
The movie is about the museum of Natural History in Chicago. A shipment for the new "superstition" exhibit arrives at the museum, with one crate carrying a broken artifact and the other crate mysteriously empty. The boat that was supposed to be carrying these crates showed up with the entire crew dead, and soon there are murders happening at the museum as well. The police are baffled, and the museum staff is preoccupied with an upcoming gala event that will raise money to keep the museum's exhibits running. Yeah, let's have a big party the day after someone gets horribly dismembered in the museum. Seems like a good idea.
This is a classic creature feature. I missed that the first time, but now that I've seen more of the classic creature feature movies from the 40s and 50s and 60s, like "Them!" with the giant ants, I can more easily identify the genre by pattern. Strange deaths occur, police are at a loss, scientists start to identify the evidence left behind, oh crap it's a monster, let's find a way to defeat it. It's kind of fun watching this plot play out in more modern times.
The creature is mostly in shadow, which is good because it keeps it from looking too silly. The acting from the smaller roles is good. The two top billed stars, Penelope Ann Miller and Tom Sizemore, feels kind of flat to me, but once things start rolling, they get better. I think they put too much effort into making their characters "quirky" and it ended up just being weird, sticking out like a sore thumb when everyone else is playing it straight. There's some cool gore and a lot of good, shadowy chase sequences. Overall the movie is a lot of fun. I'm glad I gave it another chance.
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