Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus

Title: Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus
Rating: 0.5/5
Genre: Action, Sci Fi

I’ve watch a fair few low budget films in my time, a fan of the films the ‘sci-fi channel’ create, occasionally getting something decent and fun, but also with my fair share of absolutely dire films. This quite possibly tops the list of bad films, to the extent that I question how the director manages to breathe. From the premise I was hoping for something cheesy yet fun, the same manner ‘Snakes on a Plane’ delivered what it said on the tin, but this was neither. The most polite way of putting this would be to call it a failure. So, where to begin…

I suppose the script shares a major part in the blame. In a film with such a title, you expect there to some prominent action featuring both sea monsters. Think again. It centres around the mega shark (identified as Megaladon), with the octopus appearing twice. It opens with some illegal sonar device melting the ice in the arctic (no, I didn’t make that connection either), releasing these two monsters from their 18million year slumber. After shooting a few missiles at it, they come to the conclusion that the best bet would be to lure the creatures to each other with pheromones (which is the same stuff in those glo-sticks you buy at the carnival, apparently) to conveniently kill each other. This decision takes the best part of an hour to reach, where we see multiple shots of the lab, and various flavours of squash mixed together.

But this is an action film; if the action is good then surely this could be forgiven? All 5 minutes or so of action was performed to such a piss poor standard it was as dreary and watching the scientists in the lab. The CGI effects implemented looked abysmal, particularly for a film released this year. The shark in ‘Jaws’ was more convincing (and looked less rubbery too). Furthermore, there were ‘not-so-subtle’ problems with the action, for example, the shark jumping up and eating a plane flying overhead. Even on short journeys, planes fly at ~6000 ft (~1000m). It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the issue here. Another example would be the octopus’ ability to instantly re-grow its tentacles. I think your average four year old realises an octopus doesn’t magically re-grow limbs in the blink of an eye.

But I’m not done with this yet, for even the acting was abysmal, wooden beyond belief - to call the characters 2-dimensional would be a compliment! From the stereotypical army guy yelling ‘shoot it,’ and racial slanders, ‘because he’s tough,’ to the scientist who can’t figure out that if the image on the radar has 8 tentacle shaped objects on the screen, it’s probably not a shark. The laughable manner the ‘love story unfolds,’ and I apologise for the rest of this paragraph will be a spoiler. The love story was the most retarded thing I’ve witnessed. ‘Dude Wheres My Car’ had more convincing dialogue. Quite literally comprised of; “you love the ocean? Me too! Im gonna take a walk. Follow me to the closet so we can hump.” Hell that would be a cheap line in a porno, and even then you would see some action. Here it just cuts away ‘leaving it to your imagination.’

Usually in such situations I can comment that at least it was ‘good for a cheap laugh.’ This wasn’t. It wasn’t so bad you could laugh at it, it was worse than that. Save yourself the effort of finding this one and just have a sleeping pill instead. It’s far more effective, and less time consuming.