There is no doubt that Irwin Allen's killer bee thriller "The Swarm" is considered by most people who have seen it as one of the worst motion pictures ever made. Movie critics came down hard on it when first released in 1978, putting it on their lists as one of the worst movies of the year. I hate to admit this, but "The Swarm" is one of my guilty pleasures. Sure its a bad film, but I found myself kinda liking it anyway. I don't know why. If it weren't so stupid like Allen's other disaster epics, this would be a great film. But its stupidity keeps this from being a classic. However it can be considered a classic on another level, a camp classic. To watch all these wonderful actors (Michael Caine, Katherine Ross, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia De Havilland, Fred MacMurray, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, Jose Ferrer, Patty Duke, and Slim Pickens) in a movie featuring some of the most laughable dialogue ever heard is kind of a shame (seven of those actors are Oscar winners!), but the scenes when the bees are on screen attacking everybody and destorying property are entertaining. The special effects are mediocre to be sure, but not as bad as they were in Irwin Allen's dreadful "When Time Ran Out" which came out two years after this. I dunno. "The Swarm" is no doubt one of the strangest movies I've ever seen. Bad movie buffs will lap this up. The raising question I ask myself about this film is "How can you like a movie that is so badly made?" The answer is "I don't know." I did like some of it, but surely not enough to recommend it. I give "The Swarm" a mixed review.

**1/2 (out of four)

A swarm of African killer bees attacks an Air Force base in Texas, then the small town of Marysville and later Houston. A team of scientists, leaded by the arrogant Dr. Bradford Crane (Michael Caine), tries to find an antidote and an effective way of destroying the lethal swarm against the military command advice, that wants to restrain the area.

"The Swarm" is one of the most absurd, long, boring and flawed story with awful characters that I have ever seen. The annoying Dr. Crane, for example, is arrogant, does not show any education or respect for the others, takes very bad decisions, and hangs around with the gorgeous Capt. Helena Anderson, performed by Katharine Ross, instead of being in the base where he is in charge of the whole operation. The silly teenager Paul is responsible for the death of more than two hundred persons and is patronized by Crane and without any further consequences but his moralist death. General Thalius Slater, performed by Richard Widmark, behaves like a puppet in the hands of Crane and has terrible lines. And the senior triangle of love? What is the point? The train wagons exploding and on fire is one of the most ridiculous scenes I have ever seen. How could they explode and burn? It was imperative that the nuclear power plant should not shutdown, therefore why Dr. Hubbard did not ask the operators to wear protective clothing while working in the plant? How can Dr. Walter Krim, the man in charge of finding an antidote of the sting, be the subject of his experiment? The final solution with the tune of the alarm sound attracting the bees to the ocean completes this shameful flick that wastes an excellent cast. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil):"O Enxame" ("The Swarm")

As a point of reference, I don't rate every other movie I see a 1/10. Of the 1,005 movies I've bothered to rate over the past few years, I've only given 20 of them a 1/10. It takes a "special" movie can join the ranks of Prime Evil, The Creeping Terror, and Curse of the Swamp Creature. The Swarm is one of those "special" movies. Watching The Swarm is something of an endurance test. At one point, I felt like I had been sitting and watching for days. I checked the counter and discovered I had only seen 76 minutes - I still had another 80 minutes left to go.

So what went wrong? In a word - everything. As I've already indicated, The Swarm is dull and tedious. If I'm ever forced to watch this movie again, I can only hope it's the 116 minute version and not the 156 minute director's cut. In addition, the characters do and say the most unrealistic things. Take the movies supposed hero played by Michael Caine and the General played by Richard Widmark. Every conversation these two have is full of absolute nonsense and done in volumes usually reserved for football games. The fact that these two NEVER attempt to work together to accomplish anything is ridiculous. Or, take the fact that Caine's character, who has been appointed by the White House to head up the operation, spends more time tracking down a 10 year-old runaway than he does finding a solution to the bee problem. Unrealistic. The Swarm also features a couple of the most inane love story subplots I've seen. The first features Caine and Katharine Ross who never seem to get beyond admitting they "like" each other. How old are these people? 12? The second is the senior citizen love triangle that goes nowhere and has no real purpose. It's like watching a bad episode of "The Love Boat". Finally, some of the acting is downright atrocious. Caine and Ross are good actors when given decent material. But in The Swarm, Caine appears to be in it solely for the paycheck and Ross acts as if she realizes how bad it is and just wants out.

Picking the negatives out of The Swarm is like shooting fish in a barrel - it's impossible to miss. And I haven't even discussed the plot - killer African bees threaten the Southwest. Not a bad idea, but the execution in The Swarm is the worst.