Mammoth (DVD)

An adversarial alien in search of a flesh and blood host crashes through the ceiling of the Natural History Museum of a sleepy Louisiana burg and finds itself inside the frozen body of a 40,000-year-old woolly mammoth.

The big old elephant-ancestor is the centerpiece of a historic science exhibit for which the town is famed far and wide, and it's also the pride and joy of curator Dr. Frank Abernathy (Vincent Ventresca). Imagine the panicked paleontologist's shock and ire when he discovers his prize exhibit is now just a puppet for extra-terrestrial world-destruction. Time to round up the family and kick some spaceman ass!

The family includes Abernathy's smoking hot, freshly-21 daughter (Summer Glau) and his cranky, creaky dad (Tom Skerritt), and they do their best to round up the newly-evil exhibit, but they're hindered by Special Agents Powers (Leila Arcieri) and Whitaker (Marcus Lyle Brown) who are hell-bent on the furry fury's destruction.

With special CG effects by Crayola, and a script written with all the wit and intelligence of prehistoric man, Mammoth doesn't even begin to break the ice. Bearing in mind it's a souped-up SciFi TV movie (the DVD release is uncut, uncensored, uninspired), it's just barely tolerable thanks to the likable actors and unintentional laughs.

Unfortunately, there are not nearly enough guffaws. This mega-Mammoth goes the way of the dinosaur when it comes to beats and editing… boring doesn't even begin to describe the glacial pace of this D.O.A. already-extinct DVD.

If you have a high tolerance for less-than-B flicks, you might find Mammoth worth a look. If not, then you're better off with a back-to-back movie marathon of Dumbo, Alien, and Night At The Museum.

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