Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009)

1/2 (out of 4)

In the good tradition of the grindhouse era, if you make a great title people are going to pay to see it. That's pretty much what happened with this horrid film, which became a cult item even before it was released due to the trailer being posted on YouTube and quickly becoming a hit. Once again I was suckered into a rental but hopefully others will stay away. The movie has a prehistoric shark and octopus breaking free, causing destruction and in the end fighting to the death. Oh yeah, Lorenzo Lamas and Debbie Gibson (yes, that one) star. Asylum, the group behind this movie, are experts at ripping off other movies with titles such as THE TERMINATORS, THE DAY THE EARTH STOPPED and STREET RACER. This here must have been their shot at doing something "original" but no matter what they were trying to do the end result is a complete mess of a movie, which features horrible acting and some of the worst CGI effects I've ever seen. This is the type of "B" movie that should make you laugh and at least deliver a good time but instead I walked away from this thing highly mad. Why? Because the thing is so cheap that they don't even include full attacks. We will see the shark jumping out of the water and attacking a plane yet we don't see the aftermath. The octopus attacks a large station yet we don't see what happens. The shark goes after a Navy ship, we see one bite but nothing else. There's a scene where the Golden Gate Bridge is attacked but we don't see it. Even the fight between the two monsters is extremely poorly done and that includes reusing the same footage over and over! The only reason this film avoids a BOMB rating is because of the scene where the shark jumps out of the water and attacks the plane. The sight of this is so incredibly bad that I couldn't help but start laughing. The performances are all really bad and that includes Gibson who seems to be confused by what she's doing. There are plenty of good "when nature attack" movies out there and there are many good "direct to DVD" titles out there but this sucker fails on both levels. This is a complete waste of time but at least the producers were smart enough to come up with a great title to get people like me to lay down their cash.

I normally only watch the bigger budget movies with a few art house type sprinkled in, but I had heard about this title somewhere, so when I saw it at the video store I thought, what the heck? how bad could it be? The answer: Amazingly bad. Phenomenally bad. Utterly horrific. Not the worst movie ever, but close. When your movie wishes it was as good as Battlefield Earth, you know you have a problem. It wasn't even the good kind of bad, where you can laugh at the unintentional humor.

The good: Still trying to come up with something The bad: I know this is a low budget D-list movie, but come on - the effects and CGI were stunningly bad. They looked like they were done on my laptop over a weekend. They might have been acceptable in the early 90s.

To make it even worse, many of the CGI scenes were constantly repeated. Whenever the shark or octopus attacked, you usually saw it preparing or approaching for the attack several times using the exact same footage. Sometimes they even bothered to mirror image the scene to make it look different.

So many of the details were amazingly unrealistic. The dialogue was bad, the way people behaved and delivered lines, physics (as in what animals of that size could actually do), torpedoes were like firecrackers, etc.

Quality control was obviously lacking. When the shark approaches a battleship from the side, the ship is shown firing forward. Once, during a video call, for about a second a film crew member wearing a headset pops into existence beside the person on the call, and then disappears. The caller and those working in the background are obviously oblivious to this phantom man.

There was this laughably bad science scene where the main characters keep dumping vials of various colored liquids into test tubes of other colored stuff and then they all looked disappointed. This happened over and over for like 5 minutes. All without any dialogue or any clue as to what they were actually doing. We only knew they were looking for a "solution" to the problem of giant sea monsters. I guess dumping red goo into a vat of blue gunk and having it not turn a different color is not a solution to giant sea monsters. Gosh, I am glad they tried that, it might have worked! There was an embarrassingly bad romance side plot thrown in, and the build up to the final showdown was dull, and then that showdown was short and filled with repeats of the same footage over and over.

I almost never feel strongly enough about a movie to write a review, but for this one I had to. If I prevent even one person from seeing this movie, then I have done my job.

And you thought Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster was the greatest monster battle ever recorded on film.

This is ineptitude at its comedic utmost, with a Plan 9 from Outer Space result: you either laugh at its level of inane silliness, hate it for the same reason, or just fall asleep while watching.

The plot: what plot? This script is pretty much a stew of ideas from other goofy monster monstrosities with pre-historic creatures occasionally showing up, brain-dead military that ineffectively shoot everything they have, useless scientists who apparently got their degrees from an on-line certification service, panicky mobs with screaming extras, hokey effects, intentionally moronic dialog, and pathetically atrocious acting. The cast knows it's campy to the extreme, and play along.

60 million years from now, when another species does archaeological digging, they may find a DVD of this. What will move them emotionally the greatest? The sensitive portrayal of "scientist" Debbie Gibson and the Japanese scientist guy making out in a broom closet? The said same scientists experimenting with different flavors of Gatorade (what were they trying to accomplish in that scene, anyway)? Perhaps the five minute struggle between the enormous sea creatures (only seen in periodic choppy three-second out-takes), or that dumb ponytail that Lorenzo Lamas still has?

Also, which of these inspired performances will be awarded the Oscar? The high-flying mega-shark that can swim at 500 knots, or leap 5 miles into the air and snag a plane moving at about 600 miles an hour? Or the big octopus, that swims around aimlessly with such precision? Debbie Gibson's line chewing while constantly pointing her nose directly into the camera? The mono-tonal Japanese scientist guy? Or Lamas, who utters delightfully uproarious quips in your ears every 15 seconds? Words in the English dictionary simply cannot adequately describe the sensitive portrayals in this film.

I hope future generations will experience this landmark cinema and utilize it as an insight of the sophistication of our present-day culture. I'd also like to see the looks on their faces.

This is one incredibly bad direct to video monster flick (though "bad direct to video monster flick" is probably a redundant term). It has all the classic earmark of the worst DTV has to offer--horrible screenplay, idiotic dialog, lots of talking in lieu of action, that incredibly annoying "avid fart" digital editing, bad grade z cast, Ed Wood level acting and directing, and GC effects that any grade schooler would almost be proud of. Now, this piece of S could have been entertaining despite the abundance of retarded MST3K-worthy acting, writing and direction if ONLY they had sprung for more than five minutes of footage featuring the title monsters. Imagine if King Kong V Godzilla had only featured the title monsters in short three to five second blips and the all out battle between them takes all of eleven seconds from start to finish. Now double how much that would suck and that would be the equivalent of this "film."

To sum up--and incredibly bad, incredibly amateur hunk of junk that would be moronically entertaining if it just weren't so damned boring.

When the name of the film is "mega shark vs giant octopus" you know that it isn't going to be a great film, but the unimaginative name is no preparation how awful this film is.

The script sounds like it had been forgotten till the night before there's certain lines where you think, "are they trying to be funny or is it just that bad" the first day of filming and the CGI looks like its from the early 90's not to mention that most the CGI scenes were repeated numerous times with slight differences but the fact the scene was repeated was more obvious than the differences.

It seems like they have decided to steal scenes from other films or footage from somewhere and throw it in the film. there's a scene when the "mega shark" attacks a battle ship from the side and the battle ships guns are still facing forward with flashing lights badly edited on the front of them which failed to create the illusion that they are firing anyway.

The thing that amazed me the most was the fact the film was made in 2009 when i first started watching it i thought it must of been made at the latest 2003.

If there's a film you shouldn't watch this is it