Bullet Points: New Alcatraz
Every movie genre has its own variations. There is the pure action movie like The Delta Force, but there are also action comedies like Beverly Hills Cop and action thrillers like The Bourne Identity.
Sometimes movie genres will intermingle and we get a sci-fi/action masterpiece like Aliens or an action/horror franchise starter like Blade.
There are also dozens of movie sub-genres and they have been known to intermingle too. For example, 2001’s New Alcatraz that is two parts “when animals attack” and one part “behind bars”…
- The Premise: A prison is built in the Antarctic to house the world’s most dangerous criminals and it is dubbed New Alcatraz. The creation of New Alcatraz is being funded by leaders from around the globe in an effort to make the world a better place. As the movie begins, New Alcatraz is in the final stages of being 100% operational. There is a team drilling into the ice looking to tap into the geothermal energy stored below to heat the gigantic prison that will one day house up to 25,000 inmates. The engineers overseeing the drilling process find a strange rock formation that puts a halt to the project. But an overzealous Warden Fred Riley (Craig Wasson of Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors fame) demands they drill through the rock so he can get his ultimate prison up and running. The strange rock formation was filled with two things a giant prehistoric snake and nitrogen gas that preserved the snake and has kept it alive for all these years and now that the rock has been drilled through, the giant prehistoric snake is on the loose.
- Paleontologists to the Rescue:Â Dean Cain plays a paleontologist named Dr. Robert Trenton. He and his wife and fellow paleontologist Dr. Jessica Platt-Trenton (Elizabeth Lackey) are working out in the field after leaving cushy professor jobs at Princeton when they are approached by the military to go to Antarctica to lead a team researching an extraordinary find. Why out of all the paleontologists in the world were these two chosen? It just so happens they wrote a thesis on the possibility of prehistoric reptiles being preserved under the ice of the Antarctic, so they are viewed as the subject matter experts. So Robert and Jessica hop on a cargo plane and are off to the South Pole complete with military escort (it is at this point we find out Major Larsten is the only one with a key to get in and out of the New Alcatraz prison). When they arrive, they quickly find out they are getting way more than they bargained for… Warden Riley fills them in on the hell that has been going on since the snake was unleashed. The snake has killed numerous prison guards and caused a lot of destruction… but this does not deter our paleontologists from getting into the thick of things and nothing is going to stop the good doctors from being a part of the greatest scientific discovery of the century. So Robert, Jessica, Major Larsten and his men and the head of prison security Seargent Quinn (Grand L. Bush of Die Hard fame) and what is left of Quinn’s prison guard staff go on the hunt for the big ass boa… what follows… more death and destruction! When all the dust settles it appears that Robert is the only one who survived.
- Strange Bedfellows: Dr. Robert Trenton makes it back to the control room where Warden Riley was watching the whole ordeal on the surveillance monitors. It is quickly determined that there is no sense in trying to study this 100 foot snake and instead they need to get the hell out of New Alcatraz. But with Major Larsten (their only way out) dead, Robert thinks outside the box and convinces Riley to free the prisoners, because who would be better equipped to escape a prison than the world’s most dangerous criminals!?!? I should point out that there are only six prisoners currently serving at New Alcatraz, the unofficial ring leader is Yuri Breshcov (Mark Sheppard). Breshcov is from Chechnya and found himself thrown in prison after he attempted to purchase nuclear weapons to defend the land he loved. Breshcov is the only prisoner of any significance, playing a major part in the movie’s finale. The other 5 prisoners end up being nothing more than more snake food.
- Giant Snake on a Plane: Spoiler alert… Jessica did not die. Not that her apparent death even phased her husband, I get he was trying to get away from the snake at the time but I don’t think Robert even has 5 seconds of silence for his WIFE who he thinks DIED! Jessica, who escaped the wrath of the 100 foot snake by crawling into a tunnel too small for the snake, crosses paths with Yuri Breshcov during Yuri’s attempt to escape the prison. Breshcov takes a shine to her since her spunky attitude reminds him of his own deceased wife. With Breshcov’s help our pair of paleontologists reunite and the trio make their way to the plane to get the hell out of Antarctica and away from the snake. But this giant snake ain’t done yet folks… it coils around the plane before take off and we have a giant snake on the plane!
New Alcatraz is not a big budget blockbuster with state of the art CGI, but is in line with the SyFy originals that have cornered the market on the monstrous animal flicks in recent years. Dean Cain, Craig Wasson and Grand L. Bush are all actors that I have enjoyed in other projects over the years and all three did their part to make New Alcatraz an entertaining 96 minutes of mindless man vs. monster fun.
Want more mindless fun? Check out these Bonus Bullet Points…
- AKA: New Alcatraz was released as Boa on DVD in the United States and Canada.
- Art Imitates Life: When we first see Dean Cain’s character, Dr. Robert Trenton, he is giving his last lecture at Princeton University. Cain actually graduated from Princeton University.
- Like An Old Married Couple: The bickering between Robert and Jessica over Robert wanting to start a family but Jessica not wanting to give up her professional goals seemed really out of place in the movie. I thought I had accidentally flipped on Lifetime. But come to think of it, maybe Jessica’s reluctance to accept Robert’s seed is why he didn’t mourn her apparent death in the film. He was probably thinking of going back to Princeton and knocking up the hot chick who was sitting in the front row of his lecture.
- Directed By: New Alcatraz was directed by Phillip J. Roth. Roth has 20 directorial credits to his name including Digital Man and Prototype X29A.
- Disturbing Quote: “I would have lesbian sex with your dead grandmother before I’d even consider the likes of you.”
