Intensity	Stupidity:Nudity Ratio 8:0	Budget Medium

A big shark taking on a giant octopus, at last a movie with poignant social commentary.

As the movie opens we find our heroine piloting a mini sub near an ice flow at the exact same time that a secret (possibly illegal) government test is going on. Some combination of events causes the ice flow to fracture and Emma may have seen a giant octopus swim away. Soon she is back on the mainland investigating an unusual whale incident. Her boss barely glances at the beached whale and insists that it was caused by a big propeller and closes down the site while at the same time berating Emma and predicting that she will be fired the next day for the mini sub incident. Emma sneaks back later to extract something from the dead whale. She is indeed fired the next day but goes to visit her old professor, Lamar, and they determine that the fragment is from a tooth, a very large tooth. Turns out it belongs to a Megaldon, a giant shark that has been extinct for millions of years. Soon there are reports of all kinds of open water disasters both in the Atlantic and Pacific. As their research continues they are invited at gunpoint to join the government task force assigned to getting rid of the monster. As the attacks continue the survivors are able to start describing the monster and it turns out there are two of them; a giant shark and a giant octopus. After numerous failed attempts to kill the monsters, they settle upon the brilliant idea of having the monsters kill each other.

Wow, two movies in a week where the Golden Gate Bridge is destroyed (I also watched X-Men 3, which really was not a lot dumber than this movie). Well, lets get the obvious out of the way first. The Megaldon did in fact exist and may have been nearly 70 feet long. Now this is a big ass shark, but not big enough to take a bite out of the Golden Gate Bridge. Its teeth were about 7 inches long not the 10 feet referenced in the movie. The giant octopus is never related to a real prehistoric animal, but then giant octopi are just a given.

The movie stars Larenzo Lamas (Unseen Evil)as Allan who is apparently the head of some secret powerful government organization. Deborah Gibson was a teenage pop sensation in the late 80's but never really clicked as an artist once she reached maturity. Here she plays Emma.

I won't be detailing the numerous visual and factual gaffes of the movie, though I will be pointing out some of my favorites. Like how all three subs control rooms were shot on the same set with what looked like used lockers and electrical equipment with a real high ceiling. I also really liked how some of the buttons being pressed were clearly not attached to anything and the actors had to be very careful not to put their fingers through them. Then there was the device that had a button labeled Paper Feed. No it is not an old printer, I am pretty sure it was a punch card reader. Way back in the early days of computing, data was kept on punch cards that had holes in them for certain information. You would punch the holes in the cards and then feed them into the computer which would sort out the ones that matched all the criteria you wanted. Of course, re-purposed hardware is par for the course in bad movies as are ridiculous statements. When the radar tech tells Larenzo that the shark is moving at 500 knots, he blurts out "that's faster than a jet". Maybe not faster than a jet, but 500 knots translates to almost 600 mph would break every underwater speed record there is. Yes, even faster than torpedoes, they top out a 200 or so. Typically their speeds are in the 80 mph range. And the sub's top speed? Slower, much slower, in the 35 - 40 mph range. So when the shark is "1000 yards and closing" he would be there before the tech could finish his statement. So I don't think that the sub commander yelling at the engineer to get a few more mphs out of the engines is going to matter, there is not that much difference between a 560 and 565 mph closing speed.

Still techno babble, bad physics and cheap sets are not enough to make a movie cheesy. You need bad acting too. Yeah, you did notice that Lorenzo Lamas and Deborah Gibson headline this epic, right? No they don't really embarrass themselves although the script does not help. Still they are not going to be nominated for any awards for this one. It takes a special kind of actor to walk into a low budget set, spew the dialog and portray a character convincingly. Lamas can almost do it (he certainly has had enough practice) but he may be a bit too pretty to be convincing. While Gibson tries her best, her character is just too flighty for anyone to get a handle on.

That would only leave bad Special Effects. Yeah, I think they got that covered too. The giant shark(hereafter referred to as Bruce) has the variable size problem that has plagued monsters since the dawn of the film age. We know Bruce is big but how big we can't tell exactly. When he jumps out of the water and bites a passenger plane in half (sigh, yes, you read that right) he seems about the size of the plane. When he chows down on the Golden Gate Bridge he can get the entire width in his mouth. Also Bruce's movements seem really clumsy, but then as I have never seen a shark that size, I may not be the best judge.

The movie does make use of Forced Perspective. This lets them get away with making a scale model of a dead whale and film it to look gigantic. It is reasonably effective but instantly recognizable. One of the issues filmmakers are running into these days is higher resolution. Sounds like this should be a good thing, doesn't it. Yeah, it is great for showing details, like just how crappy your sets are. I refer to this as the Louie Louie effect. The Kingsmen recorded the song "Louie Louie" in 1963 and no one could decipher the lyrics, so they made up their own. People love to sing along to songs and when they can't hear the lyrics clearly, they just make shit up. Famous examples include Jimmy Hendrix's lyric "Scuse me while I kiss the sky" with "Scuse me while I kiss this guy", John Prine talks about the fan who asked him to play the Happy Enchilada song. They got the lyric wrong from "That's the way that the world goes round". It's "half an inch of water and you think you're gonna drown", not "happy enchilada and you think you're gonna drown". Now that sound quality has improved so much, this is not as common as it used to be. The same thing is happening to film makers but not in a good way. Wires that used not show up on screen are now clearly visible. Quick shots of equipment have easily read manufacturer names and model numbers. Junk messages on newspapers can now be read. (Good Grief, there is actually a web site dedicated to this!)

Remember my mention that Emma is flighty? In order to get their cooperation, the military guys are forced to try to capture the monsters instead of just using nukes to blow them to bits which is always the military's first choice. They insist that if they can get the monsters to a spot where the continental shelf is shallow then it should be possible to subdue them. When asked where this could be accomplished, they indicate the San Francisco Bay and Tokyo Bay without batting an eye. Wait. What! Tokyo Bay and monsters! Are you out of your fucking mind! Have you ever seen a giant monster movie? So far the scorecard reads Tokyo 0, Giant Monsters 999,999. Sigh, okay, how about some more details on the plan? Well, actually that is it. They are going to entice the monsters into the shallows and then the military will try to subdue them. Yes, the same military that has not been able to even slow down the attacks and has lost numerous ships and subs already. When the expected disaster strikes, the scientists look mildly chagrined while Lorenzo is shocked by the disaster.

We are treated to not one but two Science! montages. Unfortunately the budget was not really up to doing this properly. They only seemed to be able to afford a couple test tubes and some colored water. Don't think that slowed the director down a bit.

Also what the hell were they going to do with the monsters once they have been captured? These things eat whales for lunch, literally. They bite through subs and battleships. So where do you keep them and what do you feed them? I do find it amusing that they are eating people out of plans and subs. This is sort of like living on sunflower seeds. I mean, there can't be a lot of nourishment there. Of course, it is a rule that monsters will always attack ships and cities. I am not sure if food was ever an issue, I think they were just pissed off in general.

To put Gibson's and Lama's acting in perspective, take a look at the supporting cast. We see three commanders face death. One heroically after the three leads bug out in a mini sub, and two after they were sure they had wasted Bruce. In fact, these two death scenes are identical. After tracking down Bruce the commanders let him have it with both barrels. Bruce disappears off the radar briefly which the commanders believe means he is dead. This is boastfully relayed back to the main base despite the rest of the crew having their doubts about its truth. Bruce shows up again and draws a bead on the offending vessels while the commanders go slackjawed with indecision knowing that they are about to die. This is marginal once, silly twice, but when you go to the same well three times, it is pure cheese. In a climatic scene where a sub is going to try to sneak through a crevice, the pilot freaks out and draws a gun on the commander. After a lengthy confrontation, he is subdued and Lamar jumps into the pilot's seat and successfully finishes the maneuver. Lets look at this from another perspective. A shark capable of going 600 mph is chasing a sub with a top speed of 40 mph towards a gap that is only four feet wider than the sub. When they are almost at the gap the pilot freaks and there is a one minute confrontation at the helm during which neither the shark nor the gap get any closer. Sigh. If Mark Twain were alive he would have another object for his ire besides James Fennimore Cooper *.

Good point; Emma's boss is clearly helping with the coverup and that is why he shuts down the beached whale site without event looking at the corpse. Okay so this is not subtly shown, we see "men in black" all over the scene but we don't get it rammed down our throats and it is not referred back to in any way. Bad point; Bruce is forever disappearing off the radar. Ships in close proximity to him suddenly can't find him. Bruce is something over two football fields long and about as wide as one (he looked downright pudgy in some of his shots), so how does he suddenly go all stealthy? He can't quite outrun sonar pings (which is the speed of sound, something around 660 mph depending on temp, depth and salinity) and he would be hard to miss. Somehow I would expect something that size to PING.

By the 0 in the stupidity/nudity ratio at the top you can see that this is movie doesn't have any naked girls. I am torn about this. Roles for women are very limited in films and there are at least three in minor talking roles in this movie. None of the women cry, twist their ankles or need to be rescued. Nor do they take their clothes off. They are just interspersed with the other background and minor characters. Sigh, I guess I have to call this a good point for the movie. The writers and directors could have snuck in some nudity, but really it was a good idea not to. This movie is more of a call back to Japanese monster movies and gratuitous nudity would have seemed out of place. Not unwelcome, just out of place.

Still all in all this is an acceptable time waster. If you miss the old Godzilla movies and have not had a Mothra fix in years, this may be just the ticket. Just go with the flow and it is not too bad. There are a few good moments even if the two signature attacks are rather ridiculous. The key to any movie like this is good pacing. If the movie keeps moving without giving you a chance to go, Wait! What?, then you can usually just go along for the ride and enjoy it. When there are endless shots of people walking around, driving cars, or simply yelling at each other, you have time to start cataloging the film's faults.

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