It starts out with a murder mystery: what happened in this room where everything looks completely messed up? What about the sugar cubes? And the little girl who is in shock and will one day probably serve as inspiration for when Newt is discovered in Aliens? Who could've done this to this home? As it turns out, there is something very fishy going on... whoops, sorry, wrong animal classification. There are giant ants, as it turns out (and the filmmakers cleverly wait until 28 minutes in to the movie), and of course once you see just once ant there's a whole colony of them with a Queen. And not just one colony, if there are more than one queen - this information provided, of course, by the very helpful Dr. Medford (Edmund Gwenn) who seems to know all there is to know about ants and, thus, knows everything about these giant, atomic-age ants.
How can this be? Who cares? This is the kind of movie where you almost need the information given to you because, hey, it's THAT kind of 50's sci-fi B-movie hallmark. We even get, in a scene where it's meant for some key people in Washington but it's mostly for those yokels in the audience who know next to nothing about the little critters, a step-by-step illustration of what they can do on film: lifting objects much greater than their own size, finding ways to dig around objects much bigger than themselves, and how their antennae and hearing is so intense that their lack of good eyesight doesn't matter much.
THEM! is kind of lacking in really engaging character development but, again, who cares right? The good part about Them is that it is always moving forward with purpose: what to do next about the ants? How did they get on to a ship? Could they be in Los Angeles?! There are also a lot of little details that help to give some characterizations along the way, or just in side people who we only see briefly. When the little girl finally gets her smelling salts and delivers the classic, campy "THEM!" line over and over, it's hard not to smile and laugh a little.
When the doctor is on the helicopter having to communicate with his daughter (a very good Joan Weldon) on another copter, he just can't seem to get the concept of saying "Over" after every sentence he gives, and it's a clever little bit of comedy amid the tension of this scene (the characters even point out it's just one of those things movie characters have to do, without saying it explicitly). And when the cops have to question some drunks and speeder who may have been in the area in LA where ants were, the speeder turns out to be a woman who was going so fast early in the morning after, well, being married and out all night with "someone else". Oops.
And the ants themselves - lumbering, big-headed things that were meant in part for 3D (a couple of shots show that for sure in close-ups), and while they are ludicrous monstrosities, they're kind of adorable things just in the wake of today's glut of CGI pictures. One can't imagine, of course, one of these ants in the Marvel Ant-Man movie, but then in this time and place we'd practically *want* to see something like this. It's real, it's in their faces, and when one of them picks someone up it's not fake... OK, it is a fake ant, but you know what I mean.
THEM! crams in its parable about the dangers of the atomic age - hey, this was just ONE of the effects of the A-bomb, what about the others that went off (they don't say it but, eh, Japan, right) - but it's also a skillful thriller, and it takes its actors and situations seriously enough with decent dialog and performances. What it may lack in making these fully fleshed out characters it makes up for with a rigorously told story and multiple Wilhelm screams.
How can this be? Who cares? This is the kind of movie where you almost need the information given to you because, hey, it's THAT kind of 50's sci-fi B-movie hallmark. We even get, in a scene where it's meant for some key people in Washington but it's mostly for those yokels in the audience who know next to nothing about the little critters, a step-by-step illustration of what they can do on film: lifting objects much greater than their own size, finding ways to dig around objects much bigger than themselves, and how their antennae and hearing is so intense that their lack of good eyesight doesn't matter much.
THEM! is kind of lacking in really engaging character development but, again, who cares right? The good part about Them is that it is always moving forward with purpose: what to do next about the ants? How did they get on to a ship? Could they be in Los Angeles?! There are also a lot of little details that help to give some characterizations along the way, or just in side people who we only see briefly. When the little girl finally gets her smelling salts and delivers the classic, campy "THEM!" line over and over, it's hard not to smile and laugh a little.
When the doctor is on the helicopter having to communicate with his daughter (a very good Joan Weldon) on another copter, he just can't seem to get the concept of saying "Over" after every sentence he gives, and it's a clever little bit of comedy amid the tension of this scene (the characters even point out it's just one of those things movie characters have to do, without saying it explicitly). And when the cops have to question some drunks and speeder who may have been in the area in LA where ants were, the speeder turns out to be a woman who was going so fast early in the morning after, well, being married and out all night with "someone else". Oops.
And the ants themselves - lumbering, big-headed things that were meant in part for 3D (a couple of shots show that for sure in close-ups), and while they are ludicrous monstrosities, they're kind of adorable things just in the wake of today's glut of CGI pictures. One can't imagine, of course, one of these ants in the Marvel Ant-Man movie, but then in this time and place we'd practically *want* to see something like this. It's real, it's in their faces, and when one of them picks someone up it's not fake... OK, it is a fake ant, but you know what I mean.
THEM! crams in its parable about the dangers of the atomic age - hey, this was just ONE of the effects of the A-bomb, what about the others that went off (they don't say it but, eh, Japan, right) - but it's also a skillful thriller, and it takes its actors and situations seriously enough with decent dialog and performances. What it may lack in making these fully fleshed out characters it makes up for with a rigorously told story and multiple Wilhelm screams.