Saturday, May 30, 2009

Mega Shark V.S. Giant Octopus

You know, I've long felt that movie titles have been getting too oblique. "No Country for Old Men", "There Will Be Blood", I mean, that's all very nice but you're not selling the sizzle, gents.

No such problem with Mega Shark V.S. Giant Octopus, a straight to DVD release from the fine folks at Asylum Pictures. I guess this might constitute a spoiler, but there is a mega shark AND a giant octopus in this movie.

Unfortunately, there's not a LOT of them. However, there are many scenes of stars Deborah Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas sitting in various submarine looking contraptions looking for/studying/tracking and discussing mega sharks and giant octopuses. And there are two, count 'em, two sequences involving different Naval Captains making lamentably poor command decisions regarding the creatures. If there's a Navy Captain Professional Organization (you know, their La Raza), they might want to lodge a protest. Because according to this movie, military procedure is to fire a few shots at marauding mega-sharks, declare without any proof that the thing is "dead," then get shaky and fearful when it isn't. Not exactly inspiring, especially when it happens twice. And talk about career ending. A mega-shark bites your aircraft carrier in two, I'm guessing that call to join the Joint Chiefs may never come...

Finally, mega-sharks are clearly not very bright, because they like to attack and eat jumbo jets (in flight!), oil platforms, aircraft carriers and the Golden Gate bridge. I am dubious of the nutritional value in any of these "kills," though this dietary faux-pas may explain why the species eventually went extinct...