Customer Reviews

Kraken - Tentacles of the Deep

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

"I've spent my whole professional career looking for this..." and the person who says this has to be all of 24 or 25 years old. Is this about a bad guy (Jack Scalia) or about a killer squid? Well, the plots are intertwined, but they really make no sense. We could have had two movies here. One about the search for treasure and the other about a guy trying to find the squid that killed his parents. This film had elements from "Tentacles", "Thunderball" and "Into the Blue". The acting was weak, the script was silly and the creature was from a special effects guy who is probably currently pursuing a different career path now. The ending was great. "Nobody's going to believe us" Well, they got that one right. I saw it and I don't believe is. The bottom line here is that if you see this one in the video store, keep looking. You can do better.

I wasn't expecting much from this movie, so it was no big surprise that it had the distinct aroma of months old, sun-baked chum. KRAKEN: TENTACLES OF THE DEEP is the tale of a young man's quest to avenge the deaths of his parents (yep, they were kraken chow). It's also about some treasure-hunters and a gang of ne'er-do-wells (dressed in black of course) out to steal the sunken treasure. Oh yeah, there's a giant cgi squiddy in the mix as well. This Many-armed mess is almost as realistic as MR. LIMPET, and nearly as terrifying! In order to relive the horror of this movie, simply wrap your head in wet, well-cooked spaghetti while your cranium is submerged in the toilet. Flush. Repeat...

An underwater photographer and an archeologist combine forces in this one. The photographer has spent most of his life trying to find out about a sea creature that killed his parents when he was a boy. The archeologist is looking for some ancient treasure that sank after being traded on the black market. To make things interesting a cutthroat businessman is trying to find the treasure as his family owned it at one time. An incident with the archeologist gets the attention of the photographer and he manages to get himself included on future dives. Of the three parties he is the only one who has any real idea of what might be lurking under the surface.'

If the treasure is found, it could validate a theory that a certain myth has a basis in fact. But if the photographer is right then there is a very large giant squid in the area and it is willing to go on the attack. Now we have four forces, two good (photographer and archeologist) and two bad (criminal and squid) and a treasure in the middle. How it all works out is up to the viewer to discover.

This movie was in production right when the first live giant squid was caught. The first picture of a live one actually supports the predatory behavior of this one. There are a lot of small references to Jaws and some other fun moments. The special effects were well coordinated and batter than in many movies. The extras were interesting although it was funny to hear them using a different film title. All in all a pretty good little film and a very good sea monster story. Check it out.

I wish there was less than one star to give --- I watched this movie for about 20 minutes before shutting it off and adding it to my pile of "christmas gifts" ---

a good movie if you like creature features this is a good one to put in your collection good acting and good action

This Story has been done Way To many Times. The Beast, Creature, Octopuss and countless others have the same theme. Group goes searching for Evidence of giant squad or To Kill it and they get stuck at sea and must fend of the onslaught of tenticals. I have seen it all before.

i love crappy b-movies about giant creatures living in the water but this movie was pretty bad and not for the terrible plot or CGI but it was because of Charlie O'Connell. he makes this 87 min movie feelthat i am watching all of the Lord of the Rings Extended editions on a loop. at least there is women in bikinis in some parts so it was not a complete waste of time.

I'll give this movie a couple of kudos for some really nice shooting locations off the B.C. coast (great scenery) and for some good, atmospheric cinematography. Beyond that, its just escapist prattle to watch while you eat hot wings and drink beer. What it mostly is, is a synthesizing of two old Peter Benchley properties from the 1970s : "The Deep" and "Beast". After author Benchley hit it big with "Jaws" as both a bestselling novel and a blockbuster Steven Spielberg movie, he then knocked on "The Deep" and scored again in both venues. The movie was an exciting, colorful adventure set in Bermuda and involved wreck diving,a secret cache of ultra-valuable illegal drugs, lost Spanish artifacts, and the violent intrusion of "insistent" criminals into the proceedings. Also a very jumbo-sized moray eel that acted as "Guardian" of the wreck (a freighter called the "Goliath"). "The Deep" starred high powered actors; Robert Shaw, Nick Nolte, Jacqueline Bisset (her bra-less ten minute opening dive sequence in a constantly wet t-shirt is legendary), and Louis Gossett, Jr., fresh off his Sgt. Foley oscar performance in "An Officer And A Gentleman". Big hit. Fine movie (later ripped-off and "recycled" into a much weaker effort....with MUCH weaker "starpower"...as "Into the Blue").
In both instances the stories involved criminals "muscling in" on the efforts of the good guys. Precisely what Jack Scalia ("Maxwell") and his gang are trying to do in "Kraken".
In interviews with the cast on the DVD, our Mr. O'Connell reflects that he doesn't recall there ever being a giant squid attack movie before this.
There have been octopus attack films ("It Came From Beneath the Sea" and "Tentacles"), but no big squid outings...he THINKS (we aren't including "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" here, as the squid only makes a "cameo" there).
He thinks wrong, actually.
Peter Benchley followed up "Jaws" and "The Deep" with "Beast"...a novel and then a t.v. mini-series (Timothy Bottoms?) about a small coastal town (like the one in "Kraken") menaced by, you guessed it, a giant squid!
You take "The Deep" and "Beast" and mix them together and you basically have "Kraken" (interestingly subtitled "Tentacles of THE DEEP").
Victoria Pratt is a marine archaeologist hunting a huge lost opal with a legend attached to it...a jewel supposedly guarded by Scylla , a Greek sea
nymph turned into a monster. Where the concept of the Kraken (of Norse repute) comes from here is totally off the wall. Seems to be a "hook-up" attempt with the Jack Sparrow/POTC creature by the Sci-Fi Channel programmers (the film being originally titled "Dark Waters").
The buff hottie Pratt character ("Underwater" Jones, she should be called?)finds the lost treasure and Jack Scalia (taking over from Lou Gossett..and...later...Josh Brolin, in "Into the Blue") and his creepazoid crew then come hard-charging in to steal the goodies. Of course they DON'T, because...well....YOU know.

The story line of this thing is a bit much, the lines given Scalia to deliver are pretty lame,there are plot holes galore, and the FX are inconsistant
(sometimes they're fairly good and sometimes they suck), but, if you are into cheesy "booger" movies, this is a fun enough way to waste some spare time.

A university PhD (played by a young woman in a bikini, so she must have begun college at age 9), enlists two interns (a young guy, and a young girl in a bikini) to find ancient Greek artifacts off the coast of ... western Canada?

(KRAKEN was filmed in Bulgaria and Canada, according to the end credits.)

But these Greek artifacts are guarded by a Giant Squid! And he's traveled all over the globe, over the course of millennia (or his ancestors had?) to protect these artifacts. Giant Squid kills anyone on a boat who even comes near his Greek treasure.

Luckily, this tall, brawny hero guy (whose parents were killed by Giant Squid when he was a young lad) joins PhD Bikini Girl. He doesn't want the Greek artifacts -- he wants vengeance on the Squid!

I emphasize that's he's tall and brawny, because his role is that of a rather wimpy guy. Brawny Hero stands idly by as the Villain menaces PhD Bikini Girl. Brawny Hero is clearly miscast.

That's typical of KRAKEN. ALL of the acting and writing are awful.

The Villain is ... some rich guy. He dresses all in black, and barks villainous commands to his underlings like, "I don't want any slip-ups!"

Villain limps with a cane, making him all the more sinister. He tries to pressure PhD Bikini Girl to join forces and share the Greek treasures with him. "I have the money. You have the brains. We'd make a great team!"

Villain is accompanied by black-clad underlings, including a Lara Croft type woman in a black leather jacket, and black ponytail. Her "look" resembles Martine Beswick in that early James Bond film ... THUNDERBALL?

This Evil Underling Girl NEVER says a word. She just nods. Can this actress speak? Is she mute? Are we supposed to think that Evil Underling Girl is all the more sinister because she is mute?

Brawny Hero pursues PhD Bikini Girl, each of them mouthing embarrassingly lame pickup lines, flirtatious comebacks, and romantic clichés. Since there is NO CHEMISTRY between these two awful, stiff actors, one feels embarrassed to be watching it. Embarrassed for the actors, and disgust for the screenwriter.

Anyway, PhD Bikini Girl won't bargain with Villain. So Villain plays dirty by bribing people, blowing up a boat, waving guns, and barking villainous threats, etc. He sends several Evil Underlings to find the treasure, but they're killed by Giant Squid.

SPOILER:

PhD Bikini Girl's team also dies, but not she, nor Brawny Hero. They end up in a boat, wise-cracking romantic clichés to each other. PhD Bikini Girl seems not to mind at all that her assistants were recently killed by Villain and/or Giant Squid.

This is an inept film (in terms of story, writing, and acting), but I'm giving KRAKEN two stars because the Giant Squid attacks were reasonably well done and entertaining.

Oh yes, one weird note: Everyone who's caught by Giant Squid dies. Then Giant Squid pulls PhD Bikini Girl into the lake. Brawny Hero seems not to care at all -- this actor is BAD!

But later, when Brawny Hero escapes Villain's big boat in a little boat, he hears PhD Bikini Girl screaming in the distance. She swims to the boat -- unharmed!

We'd learned that Giant Squid has huge claws, and easily kills everyone else. So how did PhD Bikini Girl survive? No answer is ever given.

Bless the Sci-Fi channel...without them, we wouldn't get our cheesy film fix, like in this low-budget howler. The squid's special effects are pretty amateurish and some of the dialogue, especially from villain Jack Scalia, is pretty bad. You might find it mildly entertaining, but poor Charlie O'Connell, not seen too much since his time on his brother Jerry's SLIDERS and Victoria Pratt will never live this one down. Not totally bad, but not far from it.