Review of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009) by Effing B — 17 Jun 2009

Just silly.

That, I suppose, was the best part... how absolutely ridiculous this movie is. But you have to give the movie some credit, too; they were really efficient - they obviously reused a great deal of their footage throughout the film. I'm pretty sure I saw the same shot of the mega shark swimming by at least 7 or 8 times.

This movies gets 1 star, instead of half a star, against my better judgment, because:

1. Usually in a campy movie like this, you turn to the acting and/or the story to help. The acting was just bad. I'm really not too familiar with Lorenzo Lamas' work, but most people have heard of him, right? He totally overplays his part; his intensity is completely misused and unbelievable. The acting from the other actors was no help, either.

2. The premise tells us that two giant sea creatures were flash frozen while battling each other. Global warming has unfrozen these creatures, and the movie wants us to believe that, after millions of years, they would just wake up and swim off instead of, well, being dead.

3. Bad special effects. Especially the shattering ice in the scene where the octopus and shark are freed. I'm pretty sure someone tapped a hammer against a car windshield and filmed it. There was not one effect in the entire movie that could be considered 'special'.

4. A few points for the storyline of the movie. Yeah, there have been "giant monster 'A' versus giant monster 'B'" movies before, like Godzilla - which was much better than this. In fact, go rent that instead. This movie's story's not original, but the idea of a giant shark and a giant octopus rising from the deep to continue a million-year-old fight is pretty cool.

5. A good laugh was had when the heroes researched a way to defeat the creatures, which involved mixing various chemicals in their lab. The chemicals were obviously food coloring in water. Our scientists were apparently disappointed when blue and yellow mixed to make green. (And why was the final pheromone solution *glowing*?).

6. A slight boost because the female lead is Debbie Gibson (a singer from the '90's, remember?) and she and her co-worker have implied nasty sex on the floor of a janitor's closet. The boost, however, is rescinded due to the continuity error of using a pair of hands with black nail polish for a closeup of Debbie Gibson's hands in the opening scene; she's not wearing nail polish when the shot changes back to her. We flip several times. Nail polish, no nail polish. It becomes obvious that the mystery hands belong to someone probably significantly older than Ms. Gibson, as well.

7. Points for the idiot airline passenger's reaction when he saw a 500-foot-long shark jump 10,000 feet into the air to eat the airplane he's flying on.

8. Fewer points for no nudity. And this movie really should have had some. It didn't have anything else going for it. Here's a suggestion for the remake of this film: replace the giant octopus and giant shark with naked ladies, and have them duke it out in someone's pool. Trust me, that would be better for anyone's tastes.

Absolutely everyone will love this movie, with the only caveat that they need to be completely baked. Seriously, there's not much redeeming about this thing. Get like 50 beers and drink 25 of them first. Then put the movie in and drink the rest of them.