Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus

Introduction

 
The future only belongs in the hands of itself
And the future is electric youth
 
Except it wasn't.  Back in the 80's Debbie Gibson had a chart duel with Tiffany before fading away.  But now she's back, after changing her name to Emma McNeil and re-training as a marine biologist, and a maverick one at that.  Emma is so maverick that she decides to borrow a rather expensive submersible to go and look at some whales near a huge glacier.
 
Unfortunately for her, some evil US military dudes are in the exact same area testing low frequency sonar in an experimental secret mission kind of thing that inevitably goes horrendously wrong.  The sonar sends the local marine life completely mad and they start banging their heads against the glacier in much the way as if Status Quo were playing a gig locally.  The combination of this marine head banging and the low frequencies emitted from the sonar pod cause the glacier to crack, unleashing two enormous behemoths that have been trapped in mortal combat for tens of millions of years.  Oh yes, the mega shark and giant octopus are loose.


 
Sadly, rather than continue their grudge match, they decide to split and cause havoc at opposite ends of the globe, so the mega shark (or megalodan) attacks shipping and high altitude passenger aircraft, whilst his tentacled pal shows an appetite for oil refineries just off the Japanese coast.
 
The loss of control of the seas slightly annoys world governments who turn to US secret agent with a pony tail Allan Baxter (Lorenzo Lamas), a guy who commands the moodiest set of sunglass-wearing guards in the Western hemisphere.  Baxter tries the usual diplomatic response when faced with the unknown, he tries to kill the mega shark using a US battleship, but is forced to concede that this may not work as a long-term strategy when the mega shark scoffs it for lunch.


 
So confused at what to do next, where does Baxter turn?  To the maverick O'Neill, of course.  Plus her old professor and mentor Lamar Sanders (Sean Lawlor) and Japanese scientist Dr. Seiji Shimada (Vic Chao).  The trio have no idea how to stop either creature, but that won't stop them trying to come up with a solution…
 

Sound

 
Had some trouble switching between the 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 Surround track whilst watching the main feature, eventually getting it to stabilise on the Surround track.  Unfortunately, this caused me a slight problem when watching the Blooper reel in the Extras section.  With silence reigning, I found I had to manually change soundtrack again as this extra was in 2.0 Stereo and didn't automatically switch for some reason.
 

Extras

 
Making Of - pretty basic featurette that features Debbie Gibson (!!), a mega shark (!!!) and a giant octopus (!!!!)
 
Bloopers - a record of shoddy acting, muhahahaha.
 
Trailer - the youtube sensation, as seen by over one million people and counting.
 

Overall

 
You thought Snakes On A Plane was a bad film with a cool title?  Think again.  Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus is a cooler title to the power of ten and is almost certainly as bad, despite this reviewer having never seen the Samuel L. Jackson film.  I'd seen the trailer on youtube and decided that it looked so bad it must be great, and I was right.  I can't remember laughing so much in ages.


 
Lorenzo Lamas has been in many bad movies, so just seeing his name on the cover tells you all you really need to know (as if the title hadn't already given you a clue, eh?).  But Debbie Gibson???  This was a shock in itself, being effectively out of the spotlight for eons in the UK at least, as I never knew she had any acting experience.  This is kind of borne out by her performance here, despite evidence on iMDB that she has plenty of theatrical experience.  Gibson is certainly one of the highlights of this film, looking remarkably good and also pulling off an uncannily accurate imitation of the Keanu Reeves patented blank look, and with a pretty nifty right hook too (probably perfected when scrapping with Tiffany back in the day).  Her brilliant B-movie performance is matched, not only by Lamas, but by Lawlor and Chao; the former with Irish accent and the latter with a suitably banal love affair with Gibson.
 
I'm pretty certain that this film is deliberately bad as even the most incompetent of film makers can make a semi-serious bad film, just watch the Sci-Fi channel if you need evidence of this.  The makers of this particular effort seem to be consciously making a bad film with a rather bizarre set piece in the middle of the film where the trio of scientists spend about five minutes hunched over a chemistry set trying to turn a bunch of multi-coloured gloop into the liquid equivalent of a day-glo vest.  That isn't the only bizarre thing though, far from it.  Passenger jets are ripped from the sky by the same shark that then decides to snack on San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, while the Octopus is happy demolishing an oil rig and swatting a jet aircraft from the sky like a fly.
 


Sadly the special effects budget isn't up to much but proves as entertaining as the acting on show, although the cool monster effects and attacks are extremely short - presumably because they either couldn't afford to make them better or the visual effects house Tiny Juggernaut was unable to make them 'realistic' enough.  I suspect it's actually both as some of the effects on show are amazingly funny.  Continuity errors a-plenty though with the effects not matching the action, such as the Navy destroyer firing to its front when the shark is attacking from the side, or the submarine that can fire torpedoes behind it whilst being chased by the mega shark, or the passenger jet suddenly changing direction when being eaten by the shark (again).  None of these errors spoils things though, it's part of the b-movie charm.
 
Most of the shots are long ones, which it turns out was a deliberate strategy with cinematographer Alexander Yellen stating, with a straight face as well, that they were trying to make a film focussed and driven by performance rather than fast editing.  Yeah, right…  Over acting is in plentiful supply here whether the US Navy Captain who decides that the best response to mega shark attack is the standard Nooooooooooooooooo! scream so beloved of films of this calibre, or the overly panicking submarine helmsman who in the middle of being chased by the mega shark and urged to speed up suddenly decides to leave his post and pull a pistol on his Captain to accuse him of trying to get them killed (and then gets floored by Gibson, hurrah!).  The less said about Lorenzo Lamas the better, but overall it's like watching a spoof of old monster movies.  And maybe it is without necessarily being marketed that way, played entirely straight without lame attempts at jokes that litter the spoof genre.  This is definitely a film for a night in with your mates, takeaway and plenty of alcohol.
 
Superb stuff, in a bad way of course, with plenty to keep you laughing and therefore highly recommended.