Megashark Vs Crocosaurus: One glass of wine was not enough...

Warning: Movie not as awesome as DVD cover appears

Megashark Vs Crocosaurus is one of the lamest movies I've watched in a long while.  And for The Queen Of Cheese, that's saying something. 

Asylum Productions recycles the surprisingly enjoyable Megashark Vs Giant Octopus storyline, but brings in a giant, prehistoric crocodile instead.  I'm all for recycling ideas and churning out B-movies, even C and D movies.  But this ended up being an endurance test to sit through the entire thing.  That's why I finally cracked open my 1999 bottle of Castillo Del Corzo red wine and had a tall glass while I vowed I would make it to the end of this "movie".

What makes this bad, and not in a good way?  Absolutely no love given to the script.  It's a mish mash of plot holes, random associations, and completely wooden characters that give you nothing to grab onto.  The weak attempts at humor just make it more pathetic.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm glad they at least tried to put some funny in there, but with a story that discombobulated it just falls flat.

Add to that an ensemble of actors who seem like they could have done so much better than this "movie'.  We have Sarah Lieving as the hard nosed military type person first sent to recruit Jaleel White as the lone survivor of the Megashark's attack on a Navy ship, and then Gary Stretch as the less than savory guy who takes advantage of natives to make a buck, and somehow has enough manpower and connections to capture and transport a gigantic Crocosaurus across the ocean.  We even get a surprising amount of screen time for poor bastard Robert Picardo, who I loved way back when he was on China Beach, and am vaguely aware of from Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis. Jaleel White survived child star fame, only to be in something this bad?  Gary Stretch has an impressive resume, but this role definitely leaves a black hole in it.  Sarah Lieving has a lot of roles under her belt, too.  I've seen her in a few, including Beast Of Bray Road, and I know she has more talent than this role showcases.

There's a lot of chemistry amongst the cast, despite the distracted, lackluster script.  I suspect a lot of the issues with Megashark Vs Crocosaurus are due to brutal editing to fit a certain time constraint.  With the way the scenes jump around with very little connectivity, the way characters are thrust together with casual mentions that they know each other and have prior conflict, and giant plot craters, the actors can only deliver their lines and hang on until the bitter end.  There could have been genuine camaraderie among the characters, but any scene that could have made you care is probably on the cutting room floor.

This is soooo much better than the sequel!Let's talk about the special effects.  Maybe it was the tall glass of wine, but the graphics weren't that bad, all things considered.  But then again, all things considered, the CGI didn't have high standards to live up to.  There's plenty of recycled CGI of the Megashark, and some good looking CGI of the Crocosaurus.  There's more footage of the creatures than there were in MegaShark Vs Giant Octopus, but Asylum saved some bucks by showing lots of shadows in the water instead of actual creatures.  At least a little love was there in the details, even though the details were still as sparse as ever for an Asylum Production.

Megashark Vs Crocosaurus had no plot, managed to waste a lot of actor's talents, and an hour and a half of my time.  This one is so bad I won't even buy the DVD if I see it on sale for $5-like I did with a squeal of delight when I spotted Megashark Vs Giant Octopus for that price a few months ago.  The poor clerk in Fred Meyer's may never be the same.

MegaFault: Lots of blame to pass around, but I wouldn't say 'mega' amounts...

Click to enlarge

Okay, after being absent in my oh-so-valuable reviews of all that is cheesy in the world of B-movies, I'm finally back to a level of free time which allows me to indulge in this irresistible fixation of mine. The first movie I chose to review sadly has no deep meaning for me, no grandiose karmic communication I felt had to be imparted to an unsuspecting world. Nope. It just happens to be what was in my DVR for me this weekend.

So here goes a review of MegaFault, another venture from Asylum Home Entertaiment which has a lot of potential which was allowed to all shake to the bottom while the CGI team tried to make the graphics more believable. There was a lot to work with this time in the way of the cast, including Eriq La Salle, of ER fame (as well as one of my favorite 80's movies, Coming To America), Bruce Davison (X-men and a schnike-load of other work), Brittany Murphy (whose "girly" movies I've never liked, but could appreciate her fortitude in working opposite of Ashton Kutcher), and Paul Logan (who others may say isn't a plus, but whom I loved in Komodo Vs Cobra). To the credit of the cast they all played their parts very well. Maybe too well for a movie of this limited caliber. There wasn't any sense of fun at any point from any of the cast, except an occasional smart-ass line delivered by the background actors. I know this is a disaster movie, but it's a very far-fetched disaster movie, and one put 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 factor!

I think the seriousness that "end of the world" movies incite is what turns me off of them. There seems to be a fear of making fun of anything, no matter how ludicrous the storyline gets. We have a man who specializes in blowing up mountains, named Boomer, and when he takes out a mountain, it causes a giant crack across North America, pretty much dividing the United States in two as it tears through the earth. The military enlist cute little Dr. Amy Lane who has no problem leaving her daughter and husband behind to go investigate the earthquakes, and then get called upon to calculate where the military should fire this secret weapon they have in space that can (wait for it....) start earthquakes! Back to the old "cure amnesia" theory of halting a crisis, whereby you simply have to start another earthquake in the right spot and the world will remember it's real name is Alice, and she has a dog named... I mean, you'll stop the first earthquake.

Not to be outdone, the cure then weakens the mantle. Naturally we then get a mega volcano that has to be stopped by blowing up a whole bunch of stuff, 'cause, well, they were running out of reasons why Boomer needed to keep hanging around.

There's not much of substance along the way, but you do end up liking Amy Lane and Boomer, because they're played by actors who know how to create empathy. Again, it's just misplaced for a little movie like this. They're acting like they're going for an Oscar instead of just trying to keep their careers in forward momentum.

The special effects here are typical Asylum. Not horrible, not great, but still just bad enough to elicit a giggle. I think that's why I keep watching Asylum's movies, because at least half of them I can get through as a result of that cheese factor. The other half (such as The Terminators) are so bad I can't get past the first thirty minutes, despite my stubborn, masochistic nature.

If you're a fan of disaster flicks, you will probably enjoy Megafault. If you're a fan of cheesy movies, you'll be left wanting (and feeling a little sorry for Brittany Murphy and Eric La Salle).