Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark

Some of the stars from other shows must have hit the skids and been hard up for money to do this.

But I can't.

I gave 2 stars though purely for the fact that it had me laughing at how bad it is. Also because I now feel a lot calmer, having rid myself of any hatred in me, by focusing it on this trash.

Previously, "Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus" (2010) ended with the prehistoric creatures fighting their way into a murky abyss. They were both declared dead. How we get a third "Mega Shark" movie begins in Alexandria, Egypt. There, an iceberg cracks and releases "another" of the prehistoric shark creatures. As you might imagine, this one is also very destructive. It begins by decapitating the Sphinx of Giza. This is great loss for civilization – and an incredible feat for a water-based shark. Fortunately, the Americans have built a shark-looking submarine to fight off prehistoric sharks. This "Mecha Shark" is a mechanical version of the destructive monster. Helmed by navigating co-stars Christopher Judge (as Jack Turner) and Elisabeth Rohm (as Rosie Gray), "Mecha Shark" sets out to do battle with the new "Mega Shark"...

Compared to the first two "Mega Shark" movies, this is "Citizen Kane"...

Most obviously, the direction and performances are improved. This time, director Emile Edwin Smith and his "Asylum" crew make the most of their limited resources. The special effects are far from state of the art – but, there is a sense of place. The best "effect" is the mechanical shark's unseen computer voice, NERO, who helps navigate the submarine. NERO recalls HAL from "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) – but without the smarmy, underlying sinister tone. The co-starring couple, Mr. Judge and Ms. Rohm, strike the right acting chords and have some chemistry. We hope Rohm and NERO will keep Judge from smoking. From the first film, we see Deborah "Debbie" Gibson in a superfluous cameo. Cheers to Paul Anderson as NERO's voice. Jeers to the series' relentless degrading of the science-fiction/horror film genre.

**** Mega Shark vs Mecha Shark (1/24/14) Emile Edwin Smith ~ Christopher Judge, Elisabeth Rohm, Matt Lagan, Paul Anderson

A new mega shark threatens to destroy humanity. The government creates an exact robotic copy of the shark, either equal to or greater than the original. Now they must fight to the death while people and whole cities get in the way.

The best part of this film was a brief scene that was an homage to the first film's best scene. This is, of course, a showdown between an airplane and a shark... a complete load of nonsense, but highly entertaining.

Beyond that, nothing too exciting. I feel like there was more than the average effort put into the special effects, but most of this is nothing new and even by Asylum's cheap standards it is not as much fun as it could be. I get the impression Debbie Gibson shot all her scenes in one day, because she rarely interacts with anyone and is always standing in the same spot... this is even less than "phoning it in".

Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark (2014)

BOMB (out of 4)

Once upon a time we were given GODZILLA VS. MECHA GODZILLA but The Asylum has delivered a giant killer shark vs. a man-made steel shark. That's pretty much the only storyline that you need as we have a giant real shark doing damage so the government creates a mechanical shark to go after it. Oh yeah, Christopher Judge and Elizabeth Rohm play a couple trying to kill the real shark. This is the third film in the series and perhaps I'm just growing tired of them but I really, really, really hated this movie with a strong passion. Yes, the first two films in the series were bad but so are countless other "one giant vs. another giant" movies. I really don't expect great acting, award-winning direction or anything of good quality but I do hope to be entertained at the very least. A lot of times these movies are entertaining simply because they're just downright fun and know not to that themselves very seriously. Sadly, that's not the case here as the screenplay, direction and everything else is so serious and so over-dramatic that you really have to wonder if anyone had ever seen one of these films before. Why on Earth this thing was made so boring, so dramatic and so unfunny is beyond me but there's just not a single second of this film that's entertaining. Even worse is that the movie doesn't really feature any good kill scenes with the two monsters and instead of action scenes we're given really bad dialogue sequences that just drag on and never go anywhere. The performances are what you'd expect from a movie like this so I'm not going to blame the actors too much. The direction certainly isn't all that memorable and especially with some downright awful and horrendous slow-motion sequences, which just made me want to hit the stop button. Again, if you're going to make a low-budget monster movie like this, don't forget you're making a low-budget monster movie. Those who view these want to have fun.