Review of Dinoshark (2010) by Adam F — 22 Jul 2013

"Dinoshark" is another typical "monster-on-the loose" film where all of the original material started and ended with the creature design. It's yet another Syfy original film where you can see pretty much every plot point coming from a mile away. The creature, forgotten for millions of years is suddenly unleashed upon mankind. After gobbling up a couple of bikini babes and surfer dudes, our hero Trace McGraw catches a glimpse of it and tries unsuccessfully to warn the public, but the authorities will hear none of it. The bodies keep accumulating (well, technically they get gobbled up) until the boys in charge are forced to acknowledge that something is wrong, but at that moment, they get eaten too and it's our hero, along with the love interest against the ferocious beast. Luckily for us, they've figured out what the creature's weakness is. Will they be able to kill Dinoshark before it's too late? Will there be a bloody finish, probably with an explosion? will there be a sequel hook at the end? Well you probably know already.

To elevate this standard story, we do get some pretty good special effects. Most of these direct-to-Dvd creature-features use CGI way too much and because the budget isn't very high to start off, it ends up looking like graphics from a bad video game. In "Dinoshark" the creature shots are brief, some practical effects are used when possible and the creature moves quickly so it looks pretty convincing. It also helps that the design for the monster is unique so you do get some excitement out of seeing it chow down on the unsuspecting beach bums. What doesn't work are the humans. The acting is dead in the water (there is a tour guide that sounds like he is literally reading the script for the first time), the characters don't have a very good sense of self-preservation and many people are introduced and then quickly devoured without even a shred of character development so you really don't care if they make it out alive or not. Some of the mistakes in the film are pretty entertaining to laugh at, such as a computer that is able to reconstruct the image of the dinoshark based only on some globs of saliva diluted in seawater. From this computer generated wireframe the convenient expert lets our protagonists know that the creature's skin is armoured and impervious to bullets so to kill it, they'll have to aim for its weakness: the eyes.

You'll likely get some good chuckles out of a mariachi band that is dubbed over very obviously and a scene where the dinoshark is so good at capturing people in its jaws that it manages to snatch a parasoler out of his harness without disturbing or cutting any of the straps. The movie has a very good "so bad it's good" laugh at the very end of the movie where our heroine tells the creature "Welcome to the endangered species list, you bastard!" That line doesn't even make any sense. Wasn't it already on the endangered species list since it's the only specimen still alive 65 million years after the dinosaurs were wiped out?

Despite these funny moments the movie is so by-the-books that it becomes dreadfully dull often and feels like a chore to sit through if you have seen any other of these types of cheap aquatic monster films (of which there have been many in the recent years). "Dinoshark" isn't all bad, but when it sucks, it's painful to watch. If you haven't seen a lot of "so bad it's good" films, this is a good place to start. (Dvd, May 12, 2013).