Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus Movie Review

Clearly aiming for the Snakes on a Plane audience, this outrageously cheesy film could have worked with a little more discipline in the writing and directing, as well as a more satirical approach. Because the cheap effects and corny plot are actually rather entertaining.

Oceanographer Emma MacNeill (Gibson) finds herself in a cover-up conspiracy after an incident in which a shattering glacier releases frozen specimens of massive prehistoric creatures into the ocean, where they immediately start attacking whales, oil platforms, passenger jets and the Golden Gate Bridge. She teams up with her old professor (Lawlor) and Japanese scientist Shimada (Chao), and all three are quickly drafted by a shady government official (Lamas) to lend their expertise to stopping this horrific menace.

Writer-director Hannah writes ludicrously over-serious dialog that's delivered with po-faced sincerity by the cast. There are moments that are sharply silly, but he directs everything dead straight, which is utterly inexplicable for a premise as preposterous as this. But alas, there are no tongues in cheek, and the insistent music is exactly like a disaster-of-the-week TV movie rather than a pastiche of it (there's even a love theme over the closing credits). And despite the micro-budget, the filmmaker clearly thought he was making a blockbuster.

Only there's so little money at work here that they can't even create the money shots with their homemade digital effects sequences, most of which are repeated two or three times. And they make some basic mistakes (the shark's fin leaves no wake, for example). Add to this amateurish editing that forces us to imagine what's happening in key moments. Even the conversations between the characters are chopped to bits, which makes all of the performances feel wooden.

This isn't to say the film is no fun. The way everyone quietly flirts with Emma is pretty amusing, as is her spark of lust with Shimada. Some of the supposedly meaningful conversations are almost sublimely nonsensical. And dig those disco glow-stick pheromones! But it's all so simplistically done that it makes you feel like you could make a better movie than this on your home computer.