Mammoth

Plot synopsis:
Leo and Ellen are a successful New York couple, totally immersed in their work. Leo is the creator of a booming gaming website, and has stumbled into a world of money and big decisions. He has to board a business flight to Thailand in order to sign a contract. What ensues in the next few days is a critique on the social dilemmas that result from globalization.
Ellen is a dedicated emergency surgeon who devotes her long shifts to saving lives. During her work, she becomes attached to a dying boy who has been stabbed in the stomach by his mother. Leo and Ellen have a seven-year-old daughter named Jackie. Due to her parents' absence in the household, she spends most of her time with her Filipino nanny, Gloria, who introduces the girl to her Filipino culture and reads about Jackie's favorite subject, astronomy. Even with the little time that Ellen has for her, Jackie often prefers to be with Gloria, which provokes jealousy on Ellen's part.
Gloria has two children of her own, young boys residing in the Philippines with their grandmother. The older boy, Salvador, who misses his mother dearly, makes frequent phone calls to her and begs her to come home. His grandmother scolds him for calling his mother so much; she urges her daughter to stay in America to make money for a better life for her family. Salvador tries to find a job so that Gloria does not have to work abroad. One night Salvador is robbed by homeless children then lured and molested by a pedophile who saves him from his attackers. The next morning he is found unconscious under a bridge and is rushed to a hospital. When Gloria is informed of this incident she quits her job immediately and leaves to the airport to return to her country.
In Bangkok, Leo finds out that his colleague has to spend additional time in negotiations, which creates time for him to travel to Thailand. Leo's trip so far has been uneventful. At a club, Leo meets a prostitute named Cookie and pays her to not have sex with any client that evening. Later on Leo reluctantly has a romantic fling with the girl but regrets it afterwards. He has his colleague accept the terms offered so that he can finish the work and return to his family in the US as soon as possible. We find out at the end that Cookie is a working class single mother who is also living apart from her baby girl.

Tags: flashback

Review:
Not a *good* movie exactly, but a significant improvement over most Sci-Fi Channel original movies.
The more serious scenes tended to just slow the movie down.If you like Vincent Ventresca (Invisible Man), he does some decent work with a not too great script.
There are some other good actors too, but they don't quite manage to rise above the script as much.Unfortunately, the best that can be said about Mammoth is that it is an improvement for Sci-Fi Channel.
I read the first review here after the original airing on April 21st 2006 and was flabbergasted at the negative response.Having just rewatched it and then returning here to reread that review and those posted since, I can't help but feel that some people just don't appreciate fine cheese at its smelliness.This is a great movie!
Great CGI effects giving way to traditional animation (of cave drawings) that gave us a taste of the backstory, with fun, appropriately theramin-heavy music - it could have been the opening to a theatrical film, it was just that good!
I can tell what the director/writers/producers were going for with the rest of the film, with the over-the-top plot, characters, and humorous lines and references to classic 50s sci- fi schlock.
If you're looking for a movie to take your mind off life for an hour and a half, you could do a lot worse than Mammoth.
OK, you could also do a lot better but this film doesn't pretend to be anything other than a low-budget cheesy horror.In fact, part of the charm of Mammoth was that everyone had their tongue firmly in their cheek making this film, especially the delightfully nerdy scientist played by Vincent Ventresca.
Not that bad Sci-Fi Channel film.
"Mammoth" is a pretty decent Sci-Fi Creature feature.**SPOILERS**Dr. Frank Abernathy, (Vincent Ventresca) is beyond thrilled that his museum acquires a frozen Wooly Mammoth, especially when he pulls a strange blue object out of it.
They team up together to put it's rampage to a stop.The Good News: This wasn't all that bad of a film.
It does have the typical fast-pace to it, so something is always happening in here that will keep your attention.The Bad News: As usual with the Sci-Fi Channel's works, the title creature is so obviously CGI that it loses the impact it could've had.
The thunderous footsteps are also heard way too close to people and places that a creature of it's size normally wouldn't do.The Final Verdict: A couple lapses in logic and a pretty fake title creature hold this one back, but all Sci-Fi features have that as well.
Does anyone actually expect Sci-fi to make a good made for TV movie that is not a miniseries?).
The movie is bad, but because everyone involved knows this, it actually becomes very funny at points.
some out there is comparing this movie with other sci-fi channel movies and thinks that compared to them this is not that bad.
And claiming that the humor makes up for the bad acting and extremely poor effects is a joke.
Critters and Gremlins).Short summary: bad movie, don't waste your time..
Sure, it's all over the map story-wise, and the Mammoth isn't very scary or visually impressive, but I laughed quite a bit and enjoyed the performances.
I kept thinking that I'd like to see these characters return in another movie or a series.
They don't have a very good track record when it comes to movies, but I'm beginning to think that this one shows they know it.The actors, mostly B-movie and TV types, with Summer Glau probably being the biggest name in it, aren't the worst actors SciFi has put in a movie.
The special effects are bad for modern era CGI, but we're talking about a low budget horror film.
So, if you like the corniness of so many horror films from the 50s and 60s, or maybe the camp of the Killer Tomatoes series or perhaps Tremors, you will actually enjoy this movie..
I admit that SCI FI has set the bar mighty low when it comes to its original movies.
Well, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really enjoyed this movie.Vincent Ventresca as Dr. Frank Abernathy is the main reason the movie works.
He is sort of a cross between Bruce Campbell and the Absent Minded Professor, and brings a much needed dose of comedy to the story.The Mammoth itself is an unimpressive, not scary, CGI mess.
In Louisiana, the clumsy director of the local museum, Dr. Frank Abernathy (Vincent Ventresca), removes a weird device from a frozen 17 ton mammoth, actually a GPS that brings a spacecraft with an alien entity to Earth that falls into the local museum and revives the mammoth that hosts the lifeforce.
Special Agents Powers (Leila Arcieri) and Whitaker (Marcus Lyle Brown) seek out the paleontologist Dr. Frank to help them to destroy the mammoth; otherwise the government will blast the town.
Dr. Frank concludes that the animal must be frozen and together with his father and fan of sci-fi movies, Simon Abernathy (Tom Skerritt) and his sixteen year-old daughter (Summer Glau), they plot a plan to capture the mammoth.The forgettable "Mammoth" is an attempt of remaking those sci-fi movies from the 50's and 60's that unfortunately fails.
There are references to many sci-fi classics, but the silly story does not work well alternating humor that is not funny and fiction.
If they are going to make it like a Roger Corman, campy, Saturday afternoon at the movies, well, get better plots and keep out the comedy.
Never taking itself seriously, never cute, never funny, never scary, never interesting, never logical, never believable, never making any sense, is the only way to describe this unbelievably BAD movie.
In fact, Mammoth is more like a feature movie and I would love to see it on the big screen.
Vincent Ventresca plays a slightly mad scientist whose main concern isn't fighting the monster, he's far more worried about his daughter (Summer Glau from 'Serenity') dating her first boyfriend while his dad (Tom Skerritt) is chasing UFOs. All three members of this family are really sympathetic and turn "Mammoth" into a delightful comedy.
The clumsily animated mammoth doesn't look real in any shot, and then the whole idea with the alien sucking people's life energy (that's seemingly a kind of white gas inside humans) is somewhat unconvincing, to put it mildly.
Another made for the Sci-fi channel feature, which sees an alien-carrying meteor crash in a museum where the alien life form transports itself into a century's old frozen mammoth and virtually goes on the rampage in the quiet little town.
It's up to Dr. Frank Abernathy, his daughter, father and two federal agents to find a way to stop it, before their time is up and the town would be no longer.A total kooky throwback to the b-grade sci-fi 50's alien invasion / monsters on the rampage with the screenplay keeping it tongue-in-cheek, even with somewhat a lousy script.
Vincent Ventresca nicely laps it up as the nervous, work-minded Dr. Frank Abernathy and Summer Glau brings brashness to her part as his daughter.
Tom Skerritt looks like his having a good time and Leila Arcieri brings a calm intensity to her role.Director Tim Cox does a moderate job blending the large dose of comical elements with sub-standard CGI effects (the gigantic mammoth) and cartoonish action.
Anyhow, the mammoth shows up and starts stomping on people and generally making a real nuisance of himself, dad arrives with a couple of CIA agents in tow, starts making bad movie puns and...I really don't need to tell you the rest of the plot, do I?
If you've ever seen a low budget creature movie before, you know what happens in each scene for the rest of the movie.Like I say, it was vaguely humorous.
Vincent Ventresca does a fairly good job with his "funny" character in this thing, and he comes off as fairly likable.
You're in a Sci-Fi Channel original movie.
The mammoth looked pretty typical for a Sci-Fi Channel original, which is to say, cheap CGI.
Bad Acting+Tom Skerrit+Awful directors, writers, producers=MAMMOTH.
Sci-fi channel should REALLY put back some better cult-classic films, instead of these MADE-FOR-TV movie loads of sh*t.
It thinks it's a funny, futuristic film but honestly it is a bad attempt.
This movie looked like it was thrown together at the last minute, very typical of most Sci Fi channel originals.
The acting was horrible, and some parts of the movie tried way too hard to show that this flick was "hip" and "with the times".
Was this a movie or a real life versions of Looney Toons?The government agents were totally unbelievable, and the fact that the Sci Fi channel has bombarded me all week with hyped up previews of this flick makes me sick now that I've seen it.
If you don't like the type of humor presented, then the movie can be somewhat annoying.
The intro is also a bit bizarre (almost confusing), but the movie finally settles into a pretty standard sci-fi "find and destroy" plot.The film is essentially about an alien presence that takes over a mammoth carcass in a museum.
It sounded like a hokey, 60's style sci-fi movie that might turn out to be fun by the time that it was over.
The idea of a revived woolly mammoth on a rampage in a small town seemed to have potential - especially since there are in fact scientists today hoping to use recovered mammoth DNA to bring back the species, for reasons known only to themselves.
But this just turned out to be silly - especially the hole "alien entity inside the mammoth" twist.But the "best" line of the movie had to have been spoken by one of the government agents as they were looking for the mammoth.
"If we don't find a way to contain or destroy this creature before the time is up the government is going to destroy this whole town." Setting aside that that's a pretty precise countdown for such a thing, um, well, it's a MAMMOTH!
And all sorts of other "wonderful" things like that - including futuristic looking weapons pulled out by the agent near the end of the movie with the words "these won't stop the mammoth, but they'll slow it down." Why won't they stop the mammoth?
There are definitely worse looking creatures in other movies, but the mammoth does look very fake and un-menacing, and the editing does betray this at times.
The script mostly is lazy, any attempts at humour come across as cheesy and unfunny, while the story suffers from predictability and one too many ridiculous scenes like the mammoth soul-sucking with its trunk and it managing to sneak up behind its victims without them hearing it(either it was a logic lapse, a case of character stupidity or both).
The direction is competent enough and the acting is better than average, especially from Summer Glau and Tom Skerritt.
In conclusion, a reasonably fun movie, cheesy, predictable and ridiculous and the mammoth is not convincing enough, but the acting, the fact that it never bored me, the music and the references and homages were enough to enable me to stick with it.
I'll give honourable mentions to; Vincent Ventresca as Dr. Frank Abernathy, Cole Williams as Squirrelly, Charles Carroll as Sheriff Marion Morrison (that's John Wayne's real name for those that don't know), Leila Arcieri as Agent Powers and Marcus Lyle Brown as Agent Whitaker.For a script that was meant to be playing for laughs, I found very little to laugh about.
Actually, the CGI in this one isn't all that bad, and no one takes the plot too seriously.
It would be doing a justice to the species, something that this TV sci-fi channel flick does not do, and while Mammoth sounds about as absurd as they come, the makers embrace the absurdity and take a somewhat comedic approach to this.
It is still long way from great, and with so many of these movies out and about (somewhere) in the world, Mammoth is in no way unique, but it is amusing..
This movie is about giant mammoth exhibit that comes to life.
I love a good bad movie but this was so, so bad there wasn't even a single moment that made me glad to be watching it.
This is what makes the classic B-movies so great to watch.In the modern B-movies, we see all sorts of stupidity surrounding the people involved.
I get it that the actor was channeling a Bruce Campbell type of character, but only Bruce Campbell is good at that and making it work.The other thing so annoying in these modern B-movies is the incredibly ridiculous stereotyping of any type of authority or political figure that doesn't meet with the filmmakers' approval.
Some alien toy that looks like an xbox360 is used to animate a Wolly Mammoth from some bones on display at the local museum.
Truly brilliant movies are plausible and terrifyingly authentic  like "Mammoth", for example!
He goes after the mammoth, along with his sweet sixteen daughter and her horny boyfriend, a CIA agent with beautiful big boobies, a retarded redneck sheriff and his own B-movie obsessed father (oh Tom Skerritt, whatever happened to your career?).
Maybe you can break the code, to why this movie was so fun to watch.Well, that's it for this time.Paladin Steelbreaker.
It did remind me somewhat of Men in Black with its "Alien Detectives" with a little bit of the corniness of the movies from the 50's and 60's.ZombieSteak.com - Discover a new world of horror films, designed just for you..
The Sci-Fi Channel presents one of its finest movies.
A frozen mammoth is brought back to life by aliens and starts causing havoc.It actually looks pretty darn good in terms of cinematography.
Mammoth knows when to poke fun at itself, and has some of the best dialogue you're ever likely to hear.
So there's a alien possessed zombie Mammoth running around Blackwater taking people's life essence to stay alive, in come Government agents Powers (Leila Arcieri) & Whitaker (Marcus Lyle Brown) who ask for Abernathy's help as if they can't kill the Mammoth the Government will drop a bomb on Blackwater destroying the whole town & everyone in it...This made-for-TV Sci-Fi Channel original was co-executive produced, co-written & directed by Tim Cox & is pretty much like any other low budget creature feature flick that the Sci-Fi Channel seem to pump out endlessly.
The character's are pretty poor & clichéd, the man who spends more time on his job than with his family, the resentful daughter, two shameless Men in Black (1997) rip-off secret Governemnt agents who dress in black suits & carry alien guns, the small town Sheriff & the daughter's boyfriend who the father doesn't like.
The actual story isn't that good either, I mean an alien possessed Mammoth could have been fun but the whole film is so routine, dull & somewhat random it isn't.
I don't know, I've seen loads of these Sci-Fi Channel originals & Mammoth isn't anything special, in fact I didn't really like it at all.Director Cox films with competence but not much else, the opening sequence with the alien space probe energetically whizzing through space is quite fun I suppose but otherwise Mammoth is fairly forgettable in all departments.
Thats the sort of thing the makers of Mammoth considers funny.With a supposed budget of about $2,300,000 one has to say this is reasonably well made but utterly forgettable.
Tom 'I was in the original Alien' Skerritt is the 'name' actor although not much of a name.Mammoth isn't a film that I liked, it rip-off lots of other much better films & considering it's a comedy it's spectacularly unfunny.
Paleontologist Dr. Frank Abernathy(Vincent Ventresca), who has made this mammoth on display his life's work, is called on to help Special Government Agents Powers(Leila Arcieri)and Whitaker(Marcus Lyle Brown)track down the rampaging creature.
Part of the rescue team is Abernathy's father(Tom Skerritt), who is a B-movie and UFO fanatic.Special effects are a joke; to be exact the movie comes off as a comedy more than horror flick.
This film shows you how and it's a real shame.I appreciate that the film is not taking itself seriously (the Spaghetti Western showing it's intention for fun) but it takes ages for the comedy timing to hit form (in fact the autopsy room scene much later in the film) and most viewers will probably have lost track of the plot due to time spent flicking through TV pages, getting a brew etc.This shows a lack of concentration by the development team and jokes that may have seemed funny during the writing process clearly fail on the screen.Somewhat like The Faculty the film self references movies of its genre but unlike the aforementioned film Mammoth does this badly except on a few occasions (The Jurassic Park and "Werewolf howls" - Mammoth trumpeting parts).
Having someone make movie references can work but they have to be logical choices and not used all the time.Too many good ideas are not fully realised and the film needs to decide if it wants to be a comedy horror or played straight as different actors seem to have different ideas.It is by no means the worst movie I have ever seen but it's definitely one for a very rainy afternoon..
The premise is silly - aliens causes a woolly mammoth to come to life which then stalks the land .
MAMMOTH is a particularly bad comedy horror flick from the Sci Fi Channel, shot in Romania so looking cheaper than ever.
Tom Skerritt and Summer Glau play a father and daughter team and this is a low point in both of their resumes..
This Movie is a very very very good movie I showed the trailer to someone I know they think it's just like Black Sheep but this is way way better