Three months after her genetic engineer father (David Stasko) disappears, entomologist Gina Humphries' (Dominika Juillet, VANQUISHER) - doing field work in Belize with her colleague Rhonda (Nikolette Noel, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 3D) - is given a satchel that washed up on a nearby shore which contains her father's belongings. Although his digital camera was damaged by the water, the memory card is intact and reveals images of a field lab with some bizarre insect specimens. The geolocator information in the image files reveals that they were taken in an an off-limits jungle portion of the Cayo District overrun with terrorists, rebels, and drug runners. Although Gina and Rhonda are initially arrested when they try to cross the border, American soldiers John Hammond (Corin Nemec, SOLAR CRISIS) and Meyers (stunt coordinator Benjamin Easterday, FAST FIVE) decide to mount a rescue mission into the jungle in search of Gina's father. Deep into the jungle, Hammond's unit is ambushed by drug runners lead by voodoo-practicing Jaguar (Gildon Roland) but the greater danger comes from a swarm of giant wasps that carry off three of Hammond's men. Forced to seek aid in Jaguar's village for one of their injured men, Hammond and his unit enter into an uneasy temporary truce with the enemy who is also under siege by the creatures. Examining one of the creatures that Hammond managed to kill, Gina and Rhonda discover that it is a giant wasp with a dragonfly head, a beetle-like exoskeleton, and is capable of excreting a noxious, flammable gas. Hammond decides to use the GPS traces of the men who were carried off by the wasps to find the main hive to blow it up, but Jaguar is still looking for retribution for the men Hammond and his unit killed in the earlier ambush.

Produced by American World Pictures, the same company that gave us SAND SHARKS (also with Nemec), SINBAD AND THE MINOTAUR, YETI, and ZOMBIE WARS among many others (the film aired on that channel this summer), DRAGON WASPS doesn't just look like SyFy channel fodder, it is (having aired on the channel this summer). The acting is largely stilted, the CGI swarms laughable (yet the individual CGI wasps are quite amusing), and - despite a handful of mini story twists - more suspense is gleaned from how gruesome the effects could get than whether Gina will find her father or if Jaguar and his men will get to Hammond before he gets to the dragon wasps. All of that said, DRAGON WASPS is not without entertainment value. Nemec, Juillet, and Easterday breathe some life into their cardboard characters once they get past the first act's exposition-heavy dialogue and inject some quirkiness into their performances when the characters start to experience the side effects of rubbing crushed coca berries into their skin (the oils are supposed to repel the wasps). The film will probably be best enjoyed in whatever viewing format requires the least expenditure and the least effort to obtain it.