Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus (2009)

Cinema Sweetheart's Rating: 2 out of 10

Director: Jack Perez

Starring: Deborah Gibson, Vic Chao, Shawn Lawlor

Rated: R

Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi

Runtime: 85 minutes

Thanks to human folly and global warming, the polar icecaps begin to melt and release two of the most horrifying creatures the world has ever known: Mega Shark and Giant Octopus!  Free from their frozen prison once more, they strike terror into the seas in their devastating attempt to find one another and finish the death match that started many centuries before.

I picked up this film expecting a funny, campy horror flick with lots of fighting, giant monsters, and cool CGI special effects.  Instead, I got a shitty film that broke every rule of screenwriting and acting, with sub par CGI effects reused scene after scene.  In fact, if I may be so bold, I would even go so far as to say that this is the worst movie I've ever seen.

But, a movie this bad has to really be savored.  It takes real effort to be this bad.  So, let's just take it one aspect at a time...First, the script.  The writing for this film was just dreadful.  Besides including so many painful cliches and "classic" stereotypes such as the customary agents in black suits, this film also included drinking alcohol from paper bags, the overly-violent American military stereotype, and of course, the cheesy mentor figure and the customary romance where everything just matches up so perfectly.  It's like these characters were written for each other!  Oh yeah...

I also loved the fact that everyone felt the need to remind everyone that the foreign characters were foreign.  From wonderful lines like "a Kewpie doll for the Irishman" (as if we couldn't figure out he was Irish from the HORRIBLE accent that was sometimes Irish, sometimes American, and sometimes boarderline Scottish), or when the Japanese scientist references "my Japanese government..."  Wow!  I had no idea you were Japanese!   And even if the audience wasn't sure, why would he refer to it like that?  Everyone he is talking to knows that he is Japanese.

I'm including the link to IMDb's collection of quotes from this movie.  They are golden.  Just for shits and giggles, you can check them out here.

Even though the writing sucked, the plot had some potential.  But, no....the script mostly focused on the three main characters: a "washed up" oceanographer, her salty Irish professor/mentor, and her Japanese scientist love interest.  There was almost nothing at all about the shark and octopus...the reason that just about everyone picked up this film in the first place.  I can tell you it wasn't for the romance or the bad accents.  It was for the title characters!

But, I digress....on to acting.  The acting was just dreadful.  Do I need say anything more?  I didn't believe these characters.  At their best they were laughable.  At their worst, they were annoying.  The Irishman's accent faded in and out between scenes, and I think only one member of the Japanese submarine crew spoke with even the slightest hint of an accent....and it certainly wasn't the main character.  The whole thing was just ridiculous.

If you're looking for a movie that is so bad it's good....then this is not that film.  This is just bad.  Really bad.  And you might get a couple good laughs out of it, but it's certainly not worth spending any real money on.  The acting sucks, the special effects are terrible, and the script is in the toilet.  Now, normally, I have a select audience to recommend these films to.  Right now, I'm not sure who would want to see this film.  I guess if you like really bad movies, then this is a good one.  Or, if you're a film professor or film student, you might like this....as a sort of "what not to do" cautionary tale.  As an amateur screenwriter myself, I think this really helped me.  It was kinda fun being able to say "Oh....so THAT'S why I'm not supposed to do that!"