Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus: Yes, it's as bad as the name would have you believe!
Tuesday, August 4, 2009 at 4:00AM 
Giggles galore!
As soon as I saw the title Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus, I knew this movie was meant for me. I laughed my way through the wooden acting, and the frugally dispersed CGI of a cool looking Mega Shark and Giant Octopus. I even went so far as to watch the "special features", and those were even funnier. The "outtakes" give one actor about five minutes more screen time than the two minutes he actually had, because he couldn't get one of his three lines right. Listening to the four main actors discuss the movie is almost painful to endure. They try to talk it up, but look in their eyes. They're dying inside as they do so. Three of the four don't even get enough courtesy to have their interview conducted inside a nice, quiet room where you can even hear them. But that's okay. For Debra Gibson's segment I was too distracted by the guy working behind her who kept showing butt crack every time he bent over. The funniest extra was the short clip with the "cinematographer", especially as he tries to get the poor camera person to help him demonstrate a cheap, but effective, technique to mimic a submarine being thrashed around.
But the special features weren't what drew me in. It was the ridiculous plot, passable (I'm being generous) acting, and whiplash-inducing blips of CGI. C'mon, people, a giant shark takes out a passenger jet in mid-air! And attacks the Golden Gate Bridge! Show me that in the previews and you know I'm going to be salivating to watch the rest of what passes for the movie.
Sadly the previews give away the best parts, but this is such a train wreck I will be buying myself a copy when I see it cheap enough. $19.99 definitely is not cheap enough, but get down to the $7.99 range, and I'll be reminding people about it at Xmas time.
So what's all the hub bub about? Debra Gibson is an ocean scientist who is exploring underwater. She notices whales going nuts and crashing themselves into icebergs. This in turn knocks away enough ice for her to catch a glimpse of two prehistoric creatures locked in mortal combat, just before they come back to life and zip away into the murky depths. Giant sized incidents occur around the globe, including an attack on an oil rig, and our fun little plane munch. Governments naturally get involved, and our lovely scientist finds herself caught up in it, along with her former professor, and a forced love interest in the guise of a fellow scientist from Japan. After some lame science, an even lamer excuse for the main characters to have sex, and an even lamer resulting hypothesis about pheromones as a result of that sex, we're off on a monster hunt.
Really, don't bother trying to figure out the plot. It's the same old stuff with government conspiracies, scientists saving the day, and narrow escapes thrown in. This is a low budget (comparatively) movie, and it shows in the small cast and limited sets. I'm actually pretty impressed with how much bang for their buck Asylum gets for their bad movies, and don't mind how much they recycle things between them. I'm watching for giggle factor and cheese, and Asylum delivers at least one time out of five.
For the beleaguered cast I have to give props for at least having fun with the movie. Yes, in their little interviews they may be taking it a little too seriously, but at least that didn't filter too much into the actual movie. There's a lot of tongue in cheek delivery of lines, and I get the feeling that they were trying not to roll their eyes as they said most of them. Debra Gibson isn't the best little actress in the world, but she's definitely not as bad as some I've seen. She holds her own against poor bastard Lorenzo Lamas, who sounded like he really wanted them to kill off his character so he wouldn't have to risk a sequel. Her professor, played by Sean Lawlor, is the believable mentor. The love interest, played by Vic Chao, plays his role a little too "this will get me an Oscar, right?", but he's still very likable, and has decent chemistry with Gibson.
All in all, Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus is a giant waste of time. However, it's a funny-groaningly-bad-leave-you-giggling-and-feeling-slightly-guilty-about-finding-it-so-funny, giant waste of time. And for the Queen Of Cheese, that's good enough!
Reader Comments (1)
[...] out by Asylum Home Entertainment. C’mon folks, I know it’s not as fun of a premise as Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus, but roll with the punches and revel in the cheese [...]