Tsunambee (2015)

You see this title with the cover posted here on the review and of course you think this must be a Sharknado inspired bit of nonsense. Pretty sure that is what whomever responsible for marketing this movie was going for. But it appears that this is one of those nasty bait and switch moves where the cover and title implies one thing and you get something else altogether different. Damn it I was really hoping for a crappy movie that was fun, instead we just get a crappy movie.

Don't be fooled by the cover!

Things start off confusing. In rapid order, we see a guy get shot in an alley by the police and another guy run up and cradle him. But this is just a dream. Then we see some random folks in Africa that find a nest of giant bees. I think that they are in the movie only to die and mention that legend says the queen of the bees can be a person. Then we find the guy that had the nightmare in an apartment in Los Angles as something bad happens. There are helicopters and fires, but not much is explained. Though later someone says it is the end of the world. Then they are in the desert and rednecks appears. Things get weird, giant bees attack, people come back as zombies, and then they pray.

Not kidding about half way thru out of nowhere everyone starts talking about faith. More stuff happens and then they pray the bugs away. Or so you think because then we get a flashback to the earlier scene about the queen being a human and of course one of them is the queen… And that isn’t the unlikeliest plot twist that occurs! I’m having difficulty figuring out what this movie was supposed to be… hah unintended funny there.

This is an awful waste of time. I normally try and figure out something positive to write about when I review an independent flick but here that is impossible. The plot is choppy and is filled with odd narrative shifts that make zero sense. The religious thing pops out of nowhere. Suddenly we have characters that never said a word about faith and God talking about how that is the only way they can survive or in some cases about how they lost their faith. This was shoehorned in I think to give the sheriff an arc where she prays and survives thus redeeming herself somehow. I say I think that was the point because it is ignored in a final plot twist (one of them is the queen all along) that tosses it all out the window anyway.

ER MER GERD CGI BEES RUN!

We are also supposed to buy into the fact that the lady sheriff is the same one who shot the guy in the alley. You know the one that traumatized our male lead and was the brother of one of the female characters. They apparently all know this odd coincidence but no one mentions it until the very end of the movie! Seriously learn how to write a damn script! Believe it or not these are only two of the glaringly stupid things the filmmakers try to get away with.

The editing doesn’t help matters. We get the toss away scenes near the beginning that involve none of the main characters that is then referenced or remembered by one of them at the end of the movie. Yeah that’s right they weren’t there. This is less likely story and more editing since it is done in a shitty voiceover. As a rule, a movie that relies on a voiceover to get across plot points is going to have issues as this is a tool of a lazy writer.

Toss in some really awful CGI bees that change size constantly, a middle that is filled with inane dialogue, that dumb ending that is supposed to be a twist, and you end up with a wholly unpleasant mess that can only be called a movie because it is long enough and has credits. Is anyone going to be surprised that I’m not recommending this one?

© Copyright 2018 John Shatzer