Plot
Following the collapse in the glacier in
which they were both entombed, a gigantic megaladon shark and a monstrous
octopus terrorise the seas and oceans around the world before fighting each
other.
Review
Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus has been getting a fairly
decent bit of press lately. Everywhere I go, it seems to be getting mentioned,
be it in newspaper write-ups, upcoming DVD magazines, plastered all over the
internet - hell even Empire blogged about it. It's the sort of trashy film I go
for and have been looking forward to it for a while now. But as soon as I saw
that the brains behinds this were those folks from The Asylum, I suddenly had
doubts. They are the studio who love to cash-in on the big blockbusters so when
Transformers came out, The Asylum made Transmorphers. When The
Day the Earth Stood Still arrived in theaters, The Asylum churned out The
Day the Earth Stopped. And above all, they provided the world with
Supercroc, the only film about a giant 50ft crocodile that hardly has a
giant 50ft crocodile in it! Suddenly my expectations to see plenty of monster
mash-up action seemed a distant memory. Just how bad could this film get?
Well the answer is almost at the bottom of a bottomless pit. The "making of" on
the DVD states that they wanted a dialogue-heavy film - hang on a minute? Let me
get this straight.....you've got a film about a mega shark and a giant octopus
that are going to fight each other and you want to make the film
"dialogue-heavy." Give me a freakin' break. They weren't kidding either. The
film is dull and features plenty of scenes of scientists mixing potions
together, conducting experiments, talking about the giant octopus and mega shark
or browsing the internet for information. But when it comes down to the boil,
the stars of the show are nowhere to be seen for the bulk of the running time.
You only see slightly more of
them than you do in the trailer, which I might add was a lot more entertaining
than the final film and received something like 1.5 million hits on YouTube.
When they are on screen, the special effects are not so special at all. Clearly
low budget films have just given up when it comes to making an effort with the
CGI. The beasties do show up every once in a while to reek havoc on something
else, be it the Golden Gate Bridge, an oil rig or, in the film's best moment,
the shark actually jumps through the air and takes out a 747. This is that
sort of daft film. The problem is that these attack scenes are over so quickly.
There must be about ten seconds of animation but its spliced between shots of
human actors reacting to what is going on. The illusion is that you see more
than you think you are but in reality, you're getting less and less. The
culmination of the film - the mega shark versus giant octopus fight so widely
hyped up throughout the film - lasts for about a measly two minutes! And even
then everything is so rushed and quickly edited together that you can't see what
is going on. It's also inter-cut with footage of the three human characters in
the little submarine watching what is going on and reacting to every tail swish
or tentacle slap.
The characters are awful and just
go through the motions but in a really serious manner not befitting the
ridiculous story. Can someone please explain to them what film they are actually
starring in? Lorenzo Lamas is no stranger to fighting rubbish CGI monsters (Raptor
Island is probably top on his résumé) and he looks like he walked off the
set of a porno flick here with his ponytail and sleazy suit. Deborah Gibson (an
ex-pop star but I think I'm a little too young to know who she was) does little
than waggle a joystick on a submarine and mix liquids in a lab. I mean is the
best that the script could have them doing in the film? Actually the script
manages to get the male and female scientists together for a quickie but instead
of just being a token scene, it gives the characters the method in which they
can lure the monsters together. And the script does manage to pepper a few nods
to monster movie lore including the fact that the giant octopus heads straight
for Japan after it's released from it's icy tomb (in the Godzilla films, the
alien monster would always head straight to Japan to destroy it). There's also a
nod to the legendary Ray Harryhausen with the destruction of the Golden Gate
Bridge (which featured a giant octopus destroying the bridge in It Came From
Beneath the Sea) but isn't it funny how that scene from the 50s looks
infinitely better than this one does!
Verdict
Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus is
just a terrible film. Somehow it's managed to grab the attention of the general
public but they couldn't have picked a worse "obscure" film to latch onto.
The only reason it gets 1 star
is because it has a giant shark jumping into the sky to take down a jumbo jet.
You don't see that everyday (come to think of it, you don't exactly see it here
either as it's all blurred).
