Hey gang, Valkor here. After The Black Bat Rises, I thought I was pretty much done with indie superhero flicks. I mean that film wasn't very good and my review speaks for itself. Now a second film put out by the same company (Tom Cat Films), has come across my desk. It's called Agent Beetle. And just like that, I'm back in the saddle again. Think this one will be any better than the last?
Agent Beetle centers on imprisoned Cop Dan Garret (Daniel Lavigne), who in exchange for a shorter sentence, takes part in an experiment that gives him super abilities. The drug "serum T", which was administered to him by a doctor named Lilith (Jennifer Vallance), who also controls a company called The Hive that produced the drug, toughens his skin and allows him to heal super fast. As it turns out, Dan was undercover all along and needed to infiltrate The Hive to find out just what they were doing – creating an army of super soldiers. And hot on his heels is his journalist girlfriend Julie (Emmanuelle Carrierre), who knows that Dan is innocent of the crimes that got him put in jail and she's out to prove it. She stumbles upon the exploits of the Hive and is looking to find out just what's going down.
But the Hive isn't without its minions and Lilith sends her latest creations – Mantis, Widow, Stinger and Roach after Beetle to put an end to his exploits. But Beetle has a little trick up his sleeve – a cure that strips the underlings of their abilities. In the end, Beetle confronts Lilith and puts an end to The Hive and all of their experimentations for good. Maybe.
Agent Beetle was produced by the same company that produced The Black bat Rises. It also takes place in the same universe and pretty much at the same time of the events of the aforementioned film. So is it any good or equally as bad.
The Good:
To be honest, Agent Beetle is a little bit better than The Black Bat; the story is tighter, the acting is still cheesy, but slightly better and it has some nice choreography on the fight scenes. It's also short with a run time of 60 plus minutes (77 total if you add the long end credits). Also that girly scene from The Black Bat film? Yea it makes an appearance here, but someone must have realized how badly it was edited the first time around, so now you don't get a repeat of the same three people in the audience. Agent Beetle… it's not terrible, and yet…
The Bad:
While Agent Beetle is slightly better than The Black Bat, it's still a pretty bad film. It's not very exciting, action packed, or anything that will hold your attention. I think the plot's the only thing worth mentioning that's good about the film, but then the overall film… ugh! And then you have scenes like the opening scene, which establishes the existence of Beetle – it's completely unnecessary! You have a woman, being stalked by this strange guy in the middle of the day! He attacks and out pops Beetle, who flawlessly takes him out. I know the film is mad low budget (and the cheap backdrops are a testament to that), but the opening should have been a montage of Agent Beetle heroic exploits as opposed to that one fight scene, since all he ever fights from then on are Hive operatives. The acting is mad cheesy, the fight scenes while better than the Bat film, are still sluggish and uneventful, and the specials effects (what little is used), shows just how cheap this film was made. Finally, Agent Beetle's costume is much too simple; I think a little more attention to detail could have gone into it. But then that's just me nitpicking… again.
The Ugly:
Everything else.
If you want to have a good chuckle, you should check out the superhero section of Tom Cat Films (The Amazing Bulk? Really?). It looks like they're trying to give The Asylum a run for their money. But you're gonna need a better repertoire of films to reach their mediocrity. Because as it stands, out of TOV 5 stars, Agent Beetle gets a 1.5. And me thinks this may be the last time a Tom Cat Film comes across my desk… maybe… I sure hope so.
