Disturbing yet enthralling

Brilliant and touching

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This was the last of the disaster films produced by crowd panic expert Irwin Allen, his most famous being The Towering Inferno. When I was watching this again recently I realized the plot was almost identical to Outbreak, the mid nineties disaster film centered around disease control experts dealing with much the same issue; namely how do you contain the risk to public health while gun ho military nuts want to just nuke everything instead? In the end this film splits the difference. I do like how it points out how keenly important bees are to human existence.The acting is good. Michael Caine is his usual gravelly best, while Katherine Ross is the one weak point although to be fair, she didn't have much of a role to work with. Her character should have been the moral force fighting against military insanity. This subplot is handled by Caine's character. I wonder if his agent forced a change there. Either way it renders Ross' character into being just the walk on love interest, although admittedly this was made in the seventies so what else do you expect for that time period. Speaking of which the swarm of African bees eventually start being called "The Africans" continually. The Africans are coming to get us etc. A tad uncomfortable to hear. Owing to the time it was made too, its pace may be slower for today's taste. It also includes notable aging stars; Slim Pickens (the yahooing nutcase riding the bomb down in Dr. Strangelove), Henry Ford, Jose Ferrer, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain and legendary centarian Olivia de Havilland.

Lots of stars, major and minor, can't lift this shoddy piece if commercial garbage out of the dismissible category. But it DOES have one thing in common with "Hamlet" in that almost everybody of importance dies.It's not really fun watching watery-eyed Henry Fonda inject himself with a bee venom antidote and see his EKG rise to "really sssspooky rates." And it's positively embarrassing to see Ben Johnson talk about love to a plump Olivia De Havilland, who resurrects her Melanie accent from "Gone With The Wind." We can cover the special effects with the observation that everyone dies in slow motion and that buildings, trains, and automobile blow up.The structure of the tale is awful. Every attempt to kill the monster swarm is ineffective until, at the very end, Michael Caine as the requisite scientist springs a new weapon out of nowhere. And what a weapon. Now, I'm no apiarologist or apiariatrist. I'd be the first to admit it. But I'd bet the house my ex wife got that bees don't have a mating call, not being moose. Some kind of scent, a pheromone, might get my attention but this movie loses its organoleptic thread when it introduces portable hummers.It should be shown in all film appreciation classes as a bad example.

In the 1970s, Irwin Allen had a string of hits using the same formula. He'd hire a bunch of A-list actors to appear in his films as 'guest stars' and then put them in the middle of some disaster such as an earthquake, shipwreck or a giant fire. While these films were pretty mindless and silly, they made lots of money...until "The Swarm". In contrast to his previous films, "The Swarm" kept the public away in (dare I say) swarms. It lost many millions--so much that Allen stopped making these mega-budgeted movies*. Frankly, this wasn't such a bad thing as the noted producer/director had simply gone to the well one time too many and the public was sick of these sort of pictures. Still, you have to wonder if despite all this, is "The Swarm" a decent film? Read on....When the film begins, a variety of bee-induced accidents occur. When a top beeologist (or whatever you call them) tries to help, Dr. Crane (Michael Caine) is treated like dirt by the military, particularly General Slater (Richard Widmark). Grudgingly, they allow him to help but what can they do with some seriously nastified Africanized bees?! Not much--at least for much of the film, as you see tons of folks being attacked by these nasty bugs. Time and again, folks writhe about with bees or stunt bees buzzing about them.Technically speaking, this film really isn't much different from other Allen mega-pictures. The characters are shallow and underdeveloped and writing is certainly NOT a strong point in the film. What sets this one apart is the bee attacks. While Allen and his staff tried hard to make it look realistic, watching famous and respected actors writhing about and thrashing as they're supposedly being killed by bees is unintentionally hilarious! Seeing someone burned to death in "The Towering Inferno" or drowning in "The Poseidon Adventure" isn't funny and really couldn't be. That is the main difference between "The Swarm" and previous Allen epics. Seeing Olivia de Havilland (one of my favorite actresses) moaning is funny! How often can you see super- famous Oscar-winning actress embarrass herself like this?! And don't just blame her...lots of other very respected actors appear in this silly film. However, the funniest acting is by the extras--as folks being attacked by bees invariably drive into walls (and explode), run about screaming as they're engulfed in flames and generally just run amok!!"The Official Razzie Movie Guide" listed this film in their book of biggest mistakes in Hollywood history. Given that their list is heavy on the films of the last 40 years and how much money the film lost, I think it's a reasonable inclusion. But this does not mean its a horrible film--far worse have been made over the years. But few lost as much money as this one did and made bigger fools of a bunch of famous actors. *Allen did make "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure" a few years after this film but with many more B-listers in the film and a budget a tiny fraction of "The Swarm".

Gen. Slater (Richard Widmark) leads soldiers looking into a missile complex. A swarm of African bees had attacked the base and the only survivor is Dr. Bradford Crane (Michael Caine). He's a scientist who followed the bees onto the base. Dr. Helena Anderson (Katharine Ross) saved herself and others by barricading inside the hospital bunker on the base. The swarm continues to advance killing many in their path.The acting is over the top horrible. It's surprising with such a top class cast but not unexpected. The fight early on between Michael Caine and the military is utterly tiresome and laughable. The dialog is incredibly bad and lifeless. So the giant bee hallucination made me laugh but that's not a good thing. This disaster movie simply doesn't move. Instead of being scared of the bee swarm, I'm more afraid of being bored to death.