Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus follows the tale of two prehistoric creatures released from a glacier they were frozen in mid-battle millions of years ago. What follows is uninteresting, boring and generally quite sad. It makes you question Western culture when people in this world are starving yet more than $200,000 US can be spent on what I can't even label a B grade film - this one's pushing Z.
Had Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus been made with a little bit of love and in a bid to create something unique, I might have gone along with the craziness of it. Unfortunately I felt I was being taken for a fool every second of the journey. Don't even try to watch this for novelty's sake, after five minutes the novelty has well and truly submerged in your self-contempt having spent $5 hiring the thing.
Every aspect of this movie stinks of purposeful neglect. The Asylum, who are responsible, apparently have a four month turnaround from concept to finish on their films. A number of their projects are based on what is renting well at the video store. Such artistic merit.
From the CGI protagonists, that would have been better served using finger puppets and a glass of water, to the constant repetition of shots in single scenes, I couldn't get emotionally involved at any stage. At one point we see the same CGI depiction of Megalodon's (the shark's) fin drop beneath the surface of the water (a la jaws), heading for a warship, more than three times in a bid to convey the sense of 'he's getting nearer'. What's actually getting nearer is my finger to the power button on the remote. We experience this again when treated to the same fight footage between the beasts in two separate fights. But why stop there? Sets are recycled in the same fashion. Why shouldn't a warship have the same command centre as a Japanese submarine? At least the lighting's different.
The soundtrack doesn't shut up for the entirety.
My personal highlight would have to have been the sex scene in a utility closet after mixing a few test tubes of lemonade served as an adequate aphrodisiac. The back-story to this romance has about as much chemistry as a dirty sock.
Kudos does however go to the naturalistic acting in the piece, served up by some seagulls in the backgrounds of various beach shots. I learnt some time into the movie that one of the characters is Irish, the issue being Sean Lawlor's interpretation of what Irishmen sound like differed somewhat drastically from my own.
Thankfully there is humour, albeit largely unintentional on the scriptwriter's behalf. We're treated to a snippet of Julius Caesar, the delivery of which is unlike anything I've ever heard. Shakespeare definitely turned in his grave. There's other gems such as "I'm not the stay at home kinda gal, I'm a mermaid" and "Those guys have been frozen in ice for millions of years, wouldn't you be a little horny?", probably not, I'd have been frozen, not consciously thinking about sex.
So there's 89 minutes I'm not getting back. Suffice to say I won't be heading to the video store to hire out Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus or The Davinci Treasure or Snakes on a Train any time soon. Thank you The Asylum, I've seen enough for now.
