A Year of Bad Movies # 15 — “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus”
Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009)
IMDB Score: 3.2 out of 10
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 11 out of 100
It’s 8:16 a.m. and I’ve been watching bad movies from sunset to sunrise. I’ve seen a monster movie, a teen sex comedy, an animated version of Romeo and Juliet staring a couple of seals, a children’s version of Jim Carrey’s breakthrough hit “Ace Ventura” and a documentary about “evil”lution. It’s no wonder, then, that I’m starting to get a little tired.
Magneto ain't got nothing on Mega Shark!
After all, it could only be exhaustion to blame that I found a movie called “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus” boring, right? It couldn’t possibly be because a movie with such an awesome name could actually be a tedious exercise in mediocrity.
Not “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus”!
Whatever the reason, I found myself having to fight to stay awake during the movie, a straight-to-DVD film about, well, a big shark fighting a big octopus.
Written and directed by Jack Perez, “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus” does the impossible and manages to make a movie that by all rights should be the greatest thing since “Sliced Bread: The Motion Picture” almost unwatchable.
For one thing, there is a definite lack of actual octopus on shark violence. Most of the movie instead consists of montages of people standing around on submarines looking grave with the monotony occasionally broken up by montages of scientists staring sternly at multi-colored test tubes.
When two prehistoric sea monsters are accidently freed from their icy prison, it’s up to a multi-ethnic trio of scientists to save the world from being eaten to death.
If you’ve seen the trailer, you have seen all of the movie you could possibly need to see — including an admittedly incredible scene in which a giant shark jumps out of the water and bites a flying plane in half or an equally amazing scene in which a giant shark jumps out of the water and bites the Golden Gate Bridge in half.
In fact, the movie’s sole awesomeness resides in scenes in which a giant shark jumps out of the water and bites things in half.
If Jack Perez had just concentrated on making an hour and a half-long movie about giant sharks jumping out of the water and biting things in half, it could have been the greatest movie known to mankind.
Instead, audiences are forced to sit through the prattling on of unlikeable characters devising plans on how to rid the world of its only giant shark and giant octopus.
Speaking of giant octopuses, how lame was the giant octopus?
Why couldn’t Mega Shark be given something cooler to fight like Godzilla or Freddy Kruger or Predator?
I found myself wishing a giant chef would appear to scoop the giant octopus out of the water, deep fry it and serve it as an appetizer at a giant Olive Garden.
If I learned anything from this movie, it’s that watching eleven straight hours of bad movies is a bad idea and that giant octopuses are lame. That and there should be more movies featuring giant sharks jumping out of the water and biting things and half. Also, that Lorenzo Lamas plays a great racist Steven Segal. And that Deborah Gibson and Vic Chao make a wonderful giant sea creature-killing couple.
But seriously, that’s all I learned. I’m ready to go to sleep.
But first, one last movie.
