Lavalantula (2015)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
90's action star Colton West (Steve Guttenburg) is having a pretty bad day. It starts off with a bar fight bringing him bad publicity and then it goes to him walking off a movie set, which was a cheap part in a cheap movie. After getting stuck in traffic and being late to pick up his son, his real trouble stars when an earthquake unleashes giant spiders who spit lava. Now the action star must try to rescue his family before it's too late.
LAVALANTULA works on a number of levels. For starters, it's a pretty fun monster that manages to stick out among the countless monsters that appear in SyFy movies. I thought the CGI effects, while very cheap and obvious, were actually pretty good and made for a fun villain. Their burnt design was a major plus and the fact that they could spit at lava was another fun aspect. I will say that these monsters needed to be in even more of the film but I'm sure the eventual sequel will work on that.
The second thing this succeeds at is reuniting four members of the POLICE ACADEMY series. If you weren't a fan of that series then you're obviously not going to care but as someone who grew up watching these movies it was pretty cool getting to see members reunited. In fact, I'd say it was excellent to see Guttenberg leading up a movie again and he manages to be quite fun here as he's sense of humor really works well with the material. Marion Ramsey, Michael Winslow and Leslie Easterbrook also appear as does another cameo from a SyFy series that I won't ruin. Nia Peeples was also fun as the wife. Patrick Reena (THE SANDLOT) is also on hand and adds some fun.
LAVALANTULA features a number of fun but gory deaths and overall it's a nice entertainment. For a monster feature it works and if you're a fan of POLICE ACADEMY then you're going to get an added bonus.
