THE STORY: Emptyshell did a great review of the sequel to this movie. I was in the video store and saw the original on sale for three bucks so I bought it. I liked this movie when it came out in 1986, so I figured what the hey. Its time to watch something half decent for a change.

Seth Brundle is a brilliant, but erratic scientist. He's more than brilliant....he's discovered the secret of matter teleportation centuries before Captain Kirk and Mister Spock! At first he wants to keep it a secret until he can perfect the system, but he blabs to a reporter, Veronica. ("Ronnie") Soon they become lovers and she keeps a log of his progress with his "Telepods". You see, the telepods work fine with inanimate objects, but living things go in one end and come out the other as mangled, steaming piles of dying flesh.

It doesn't help that Brundle works alone, methinks. The telepods work on inanimate objects! Geez, that in itself is incredible! If Brundle went public with them working like that he'd be a hero! But no, he's gotta have them working on living organisms before he's ready to tell the world. Ronnie's former lover and editor, Stathis, is jealous of Brundle. He wants Ronnie back and he doesn't particularly believe her about Brundle's great invention. Brundle comes to believe that Ronnie is sleeping with Stathis still, and in a drunken fit of jealousy tests the pods out on himself. Only a fly gets in the pod with him and the telepods fuse him and the fly together at a genetic/molecular level.

It goes downhill for Brundle after that. He begins to act strangely and aggressive, driving Ronnie away. He doesn't realize what's happened until its too late....by too late I mean when he actually begins to mutate and body parts start falling off. There's nothing anyone can do to help him and Brundle becomes practically insane, naming himself "Brundlefly". Ronnie to her horror discovers she's pregnant by Brundle and seeks help from Stathis. She wants an abortion right away. For all she knows she got pregnant after Brundle's experiment and the baby could be a horrifying mutant. Brundlefly discovers the pregnancy and kidnaps Ronnie. His plan is to go into the teleporter with her and come out as one gestalt entity, more human than he is on his own. Stathis tries to rescue her, but gets his hand and foot melted off by Brundlefly's acid vomit for his trouble. Wounded, Stathis is still able to sabotage the teleporter saving Ronnie. Brundlefly isn't so lucky. The telepod fuses his mutated body into the metal. Dying and no longer human at all, Brundlefly urges Ronnie to kill him....which she does. The end.

In the world of sci-fi monster flicks there are very few that are actually just plain good. You can find a dozen movies about people turning into monsters and all, but most are just blood and guts gore fests. This movie is pretty damned good though. Jeff Goldblum stars as the hapless Seth Brundle. Geena Davis is Ronnie.

BEST LINES:  "What's that? His cock?" - Stathis to Ronnie when she tells him she's onto something big with Brundle.

"That's disgusting." - Brundle has to vomit fly-acid on his food in order to eat. He does it in front of Ronnie and then says this.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:

1.) Brundle doesn't realize that Ronnie is a reporter? He gets upset about it after he reveals his telepods to her. He's not ready to tell the world about his invention. So why did he tell her regardless of whether she's a reporter or not? Even if Ronnie was just a floozy from the street she could still blow the whistle!

2.) Speaking of Ronnie, she must be really good in bed! Why would Stathis follow her around after she's dumped him if she wasn't? This guy stalks her and makes a scene in a store about it. But he's a big wig editor! Doesn't he have any common sense? Hey, I've been on the receiving end of a ticket to Dumpsville in my lifetime, but even when I was rip roaring drunk I never acted that obsessed! (Although I did make a scene in the female dorm once...but hey, I was 19!)

3.) I think this goes without saying...there is absolutely no [unwrite]ing way I'd ever get into that telepod thing. Ever. Even if I invented it. And if I did invent it I'd damn sure create a security protocol that would lock the computer out when I'd been drinking. Brundle must have been out of his damned mind.

4.) When Stathis goes to rescue Ronnie from Brundlefly he waits until he's in the lab to put his weapon together. Right. He saw the mutated Brundle carrying Ronnie off by leaping from rooftops. How many guys do you know can carry a full grown woman while jumping from rooftops? So that should tell Stathis right there that Brundle has an advantage in strength and gnarly powers. Yet he waits to put his weapon together? No f***ing way, my droogies. I'd have gotten a few friends and burst in there with two 9mm's, the shotgun and maybe an uzi ready to rock.

SEX AND/OR NUDITY:  A quick glimpse of Ronnie's left boob. Ronnie and Brundle have sex.

A FEW MORE POINTS OF INTEREST: Bartok Industries is paying for all of the equipment that Brundle needs but they don't know what he's building? Don't they have any interest in what he's doing? For all they know he could be making a Doomsday Bomb! I don't care what Brundle says....this stuff can't be cheap! I know its fiction, but do you realize how much power it would take to break something down molecule by molecule? (A few atomic bombs worth of power!) Not to mention that any computer that can map out the location of every atom in an object would have to be the fastest, most powerful super computer in the universe!

After he starts to mutate Brundle tells Ronnie to stay back because of possible contagion. But when he barfs all over himself and his ear falls off he cries and she hugs him. Uhhhh...no. He'd have been a really sad guy if I were Ronnie. I'm not hugging a mutated leper guy that barfs acid! Maybe I'm a cold blooded guy, but there is absolutely no way I'd even go into a room with him without an environment suit.

I wonder what Brundle did with the first monkey he teleported. The one that came out all mangled? How do you explain that to the SPCA or the human society? Somebody call PETA!

THE FINAL JUDGEMENT: If you haven't seen this movie you should go rent it now. Its pretty good. Don't worry, its not like the old 50's version. No hokey Fly masks. No "Help me!!! Help meeeee!". (which was the scariest part of the original flick to me when I was a kid) Go on and put a fly in your ointment!