Amphibious 3D

Lots of people are slow to admit to other people,that they love b-budget sci-fi,s .Not me,so i will watch most anything on sy-fi channel.Period. This movie was a good view.Not perfect by any means,however,if your "one of us! ",watch it .Brian Yuzna is behind the wheel,and that man needs no introduction to sci-fi .O.K.,i know i,m late to the table on this one,as it was made in 2010,but ,to tell the truth,i JUST watched it.the acting is what you expect,and sadly,the crew fails to soak up much lens time in what would be a great country to film in(India).They most likely shot it in a lot of different places.I do like the fact that,without giving anything away,they built a cool,full scale monster,from scratch!In a world with WAY too many C.G.I. flix,as an artist,i love to see this these days.There is a good mix of the computer fx,action, a sub-plot, good gore effects and ...evil! ..!...a soon to be sy-fy channel classic.

Brian Yuzna is one the few remaining, and still active, producers/directors who can pretty much afford themselves everything. After all, he's the man who made the world a much better place with immortal horror classics like "Re-Animator", "From Beyond", "Society" and "Return of the Living Dead III", and therefore we still owe him gratitude. Of course, it's been thirty years, and with duds like "Rottweiler" and "Beneath Still Waters", Yuzna's untouchable status started declining fast. The inept, derivative, and - quite frankly - boring "Amphibious" won't do his credit much good, neither.

Even in 2D, how I watched it, "Amphibious" clearly has good potential to be an undemanding and amusing creature-feature/giant monster flick. The opening sequences are also promising, with a young couple on holiday in Indonesia getting ripped to pieces by the tail of a humongous kind of sea-scorpion. Unfortunately, though, the plot then becomes unnecessarily convoluted and absurd. The monster is somehow spiritually linked to a child, and the marine biologist suffers from traumatic flashbacks. Who cares, we only want to see filthy Indonesian slaved traders getting devoured! Luckily, there's still a fair amount of gore the computerized special effects are reasonably decent. Yuzna is clever and experienced enough to only reveal small parts of the creature, and only show it in full during the finale.

Mildly interesting also, at least to some people, is that "Amphibious" is a co-production with unusual countries involved, like Indonesia and The Netherlands. Many of the crew members are Dutch or Belgian, and also lead actress Jenna Fassaert can't hide her ugly accent. I don't criticize her, though, since the entire cast terrible.

When I saw this at my local shop I bought it for two reasons, it was very cheap for being a real 3D but most of all it was the new Brian Yuzna flick. I knew him from the follow-ups of the Reanimator franchise so I knew he could make some gory flicks.

Looking towards the cover of the Blu ray it was clearly a rip-off of Piranha 3D and Piranha 3DD. Don't ever think that you will see that shot somewhere in Amphibious. It even goes a bit further on the negative kind. It has an SyFy or The Asylum overlook. This isn't a straight horror it's a pure creature feature but one of the CGI kind and making it more ridiculous is the fact that it's prehistoric.

I can dig the settings but I wasn't satisfied with the gore or horror. There isn't that much in it but when it does it's okay and even a bit gruesome but in fact it's more about saving children who are working as slaves on some kind of fishing thing. Of course Skylar (Janna Fassaert) do search for prehistoric life and so it comes that the creature is found but it also has to do with black magic.

You don't watch it for the acting because some acting is wooden as hell, Fassaert is okay but still it could have been a SyFy flick. Rather disappointed for a Yuzna flick.

On part of the 3D that was okay. If you watch it 2D you never will have the feeling that some shot were done for 3D. The 3D works now and then rather good and it does work throughout the whole movie. Shark Night 3D (2011) for example was only in 3D when there was action of the shark.

Guess a lot will hate Amphibious, pure for the creature freaks. Maybe the best thing was the start of the movie with the couple going for a swim, that delivered some good moments.

Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 1/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

OK, so it is not really a horror but a creature movie! And it starts quite nicely, some humor, some unexpected things, everything seems to head to a nice flick in the end. Faaaaar from it, pretty much all goes down the drain once you get a look at the sea-creature itself! I mean really? That was the best they could come up with?

What more to say, dialogue are pretty funny and they are meant to be that way, so one point here! The place where the action takes place, again, nice, not bad at all, you probably seen it before but still, brings a nice touch to it all. Characters, one point once again, i found them OK, they blend in great. But these are the only good things, therefore that is why i rated this movie 3 out of 10! I just can't get pass the creature, come on, XXI century, the ability to make whatever effects you want, even if a little cash short still, horrible sea-creature. And not sure if that is a SEA-monster, seriously!

So all in all, if you are simply too bored, and i mean really really bored, and you can't seem to find anything else instead, i mean it, anything else at all, maybe, just maybe, this could work...but i doubt it. My advice, look harder, you will find something out there you will like.

So this movie is a bit hard done by with the score at the moment I think (at a 3.8 as I write this) but unfortunately I can understand why people have given it that score.

This movie has a LOT of good points, the character writing is honestly great, the two main actors (the ships captain and the female marine biologist) are decent actors and the others are all reasonable too, the story is well thought through and keeps its focus throughout. Its also really well shot as well and the creature idea is quite unique. So why the low score?

Well despite doing all of that well, the fact is this is a creature feature film in which you really dont see the creature at all until the final scene. Before that the kills are all masked and quite unsatisfying. Its a creature feature film... which doesnt focus on the creature. Ultimately if you put this in hoping for some simple monster fun, you really dont get much of that.

Its honestly a real shame I would have liked to have given this a higher score.