Surprisingly incoherent and boring

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Filmed back to back alongside 'Critters 3' and the first critter movie not set on Earth. This movie follows on where the third movie left off. Charlie (Don Keith Opper) is about to destroy the last of the Crite eggs but is stopped by an activated hologram message from his old bounty hunter friend Ug (Terrence Mann). Ug tells Charlie to load the eggs into an incoming pod so they can be sent to him (in deep space). Of course Charlie being the bumbling goof that he is, gets trapped inside the pod and whisked away into deep space. 52 years later the pod is picked up by a salvage ship who eventually bring it to a space station so as to hand it over to Ug. The crew find the station abandoned and under control of a malfunctioning central computer; things get worse when the crite eggs hatch.So yes this movie does sound like your standard alien horror flick. Team of space pirate types find a mysterious pod. They take it to an equally mysterious space station. Alien is unleashed and everyone gets eaten, the end. But lets be honest here, what did you really expect from a fourth Critters movie? The salvage team of roughneck space pirates are your stereotypical bunch really. You have the captain (Anders Hove) who this time is the ships weirdo. The token young guy who we the audience is supposed to root for. The token sexy female (Angela Bassett). The token tough guy with rebellious hairstyle. And the token intelligent nerdy looking guy (Brad Dourif) who basically does anything technical.The space station they are instructed to go to is again your very typical looking space station type location. Everything is generally very dark and industrial looking with lots of railings, pipework, grates, shafts, dim lighting to disguise obvious sets, plenty of similar corridors, and control panels. Here and there you might see a room that is white in colour because its a medical bay or sleeping quarters or whatever. But overall its a very gunmetal grey looking environment. Visual effects wise its as you might expect. The exterior space effects with ship flybys are pretty bad looking with terrible model and bluescreen work. Interior sets were actually fine but limited in a 'Red Dwarf' kinda way. It was amusing to see the actors perform on the exact same corridor set over and over but from different angles (obviously supposed to be different sections). Twas also amusing that there were so many ducks and shafts that could fit an adult human in and had grates at either end that are so easily pulled off. Handy for quick escapes and whatnot.As with the previous movies the actual crite effects are once again on top form. I'm actually surprised because you'd half expect the creatures to look worse with each sequel (often the norm) but here they still look just as good. They haven't been played with design wise, they're still just the same as the original crites. Same colouring, same size, same little claws, same glowing red eyes, but apparently no dart action this time.I guess the real problems arise from the plot (not that you'd expect anything more). For instance, why exactly has Ug turned into a bad guy for this one? He's apparently becomes a part of the intergalactic council (and something called TerraCor? Is that part of the council??) and has become a 'company man' so to speak, 'things change'. But I find it difficult to believe that Ug would flip on his old friend like that. Secondly, why does Ug actually want the eggs? This is never really explained. I'm guessing that now he's evil he wants to do evil things with them? Then looking at the pod and how Charlie got stuck in there; how come he didn't age over the 52 years in...deep sleep? Or was he frozen? The pod was designed to look after the eggs for a long period of time, not a human. So how come Charlie even survived this?? Then there's the question of how the remaining salvage crew knew how to fly Ug's ship at the end, eh why ask?Despite the obvious issues with this movie I actually think its OK. This is only the second time I've seen this but its not as bad as I thought it was. Sure its not as good as the first two but it holds its own. The change of scenery is refreshing for the franchise (as was the previous third movie locale). The effects are generally solid, the cast is surprisingly decent, and the horror and gore is acceptable (but nothing amazing). Its played a bit more seriously this time with not as much comedy, but it just about works. I recommend if you like the previous entries or simply enjoy a good silly horror comedy.6.5/10

Critters 4 I love El Rey network because they're always showing strange stuff like this fun little movie. And I'm pretty sure Jason X, the Friday the 13th movie that takes place in space, totally ripped off the plot of Critters 4. I think they're both put out by the same studio which makes it even funnier but whatever. Like I was saying before, this is a stupid but fun movie. I can not believe IMDb is ranking it so low. I am going to slap a ten out of ten on this ranking just to balance out the average.

Trapped in suspended animation, a human bounty hunter is released on a spaceship in the future with the creatures frozen along with him and tries to help the remaining crew-members track down and destroy the creatures before they take over the ship.This one here wasn't all that bad of an effort in the series. Among the fun parts here is the fact that like the majority of the other entries here this one does manage to capture the same kind of goofy and enjoyable tone that was always so present in the majority of the film's in the rest of the series with the way this one goes for the action here. This all starts off nicely with the space-pod being collected and the eventual release inside the ship leading to plenty of fun as the loosened creatures knock off the crew-member before the bounty hunter begins taking them out, the series of stalking scenes through the ship attempting to find the creatures in all the different compartments and rooms and their encounter down in the garbage chute which manage to be quite fun and somewhat entertaining sequences. The methods of containing the creatures down on the lower levels and how they come into focus later on in the trap for the military patrol seizing the ship.at the end. Those are really fun where they run through the guards in fun fashion leading to numerous fun and exciting deaths and action scenes which results in plenty of fun overall here. Again, there's the creatures' rather goofy, cheesy attitude and great effects work that comes into play throughout here which makes for some enjoyable positives here. There's a few small areas here that don't really hold up all that well with this one, which mostly stems from the fact that there's so little time on the creatures that they're barely involved here at all, despite not only being the longest film in the series but also manages to crack out the most amount of deaths as well. Barely being featured and having their appearances neutered so that there's far more time spent on the situation of being in the crumbling station and then having him be introduced to the new society as it's now in the future makes for a rather long stretch of time here without giving them much to do that it turns out to be quite a bland set-up here before it gets really fun. Likewise, the issue at the end where they appear out of nowhere trying to save the creatures makes no sense as the issue itself is such a cliché that there's little shock to it beyond introducing the guards for more creature fodder, stretching out the running time a little longer by putting in a series of scenes that add to it's length and really not doing much of anything here that makes for an enjoyable time. The last flaw here is the other stand- by of the series, as the cheese might not be all that accommodating to many others out there as the goofiness and straight-faced silliness on display might not be all that appealing to some out there. Otherwise, it's not all that bad at all.Rated PG-13: Violence, Language and Brief Nudity.

So, I took forever to get around to watching Critters 4. Big fan of the first two, and despite knowing beforehand this one was only marginally better than the abysmal 3rd entry, I am still disappointed. At the outset, it all looks so promising, the Crites are back in their natural habitat, space, doing what they do best, chowing down on hapless humans. Well, at least that's what the DVD cover would have you believe. But in reality, Critters 4 should have been subtitled, "No Crites on set", as you hardly ever see the Crites and even when you do, their kills and banter is very unoriginal and just not very fun to watch. Critters 4 takes a darker route than it's comedy horror predecessors, but the humour is half the fun of Critters films, in 4, the humour is nullified to non existent levels apart from a few "Insane computer" jokes that fell flat. Once the fun is removed, and the Crite action, you are left with a plodding, dull as dishwater, 1 and half hour movie that has very little to redeem it. Whilst I really dislike the 3rd film, at least that one didn't go out of it's way to ruin already established fan fave characters, such as Ug. Yes, Critters 4 is a turgid movie, even for fans of the series, but worse, it commit's the ultimate sin, it destroys the awesome character Ug, who has been built up over the series into one of my all time fave sci fi characters. In this film, you find out that Ug is no longer a bounty hunter, nor is he generally a nice guy now, now he's a murderous bureaucrat who wants to preserve the Crites for use as bioweapons, instead of kill them. The sudden and unexplained changes in Ug's character leave a bad taste in your mouth. Also, the underwhelming use of the best character in the series, Charlie, leaves a lot to be desired. Once again Don Opper is brilliant as Charlie, but, he has nothing to work with. The characterisation and dialogue is very uneven. Even as a Critters fan, I can't recommend this film to anyone. I hope this is the last. No reboots, no further watered down, below par sequels, unless the Chiodo brothers get back involved. Critters, it's been a fun 30 years, but all good things must end.