Customer Reviews

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I saw part of "Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus" when it had its cable TV premier on the idiotically renamed Syfy channel a few months ago. I knew I had to obtain it for my library. How could I not, it has all the stars in the cheese universe perfectly aligned: ridiculous title, ludicrous plot, complete lack of knowledge about sharks, octopi, or the military weaponry needed to fight them, preachy environmentalist plotpoints, terrible acting, and cast members that Ed Wood could only dream of, most notably Debbie (oh sorry, Deborah) "Shake Your Love" Gibson, and master cheese maker Lorenzo Lamas. It's a perfect conflagration.

The film starts in the mountains (?) of Alaska, and after a very long credit sequence, progresses to oceanologist Emma (Debbie Gibson) driving a stolen submarine under a glacial icecap while a helicopter hovers overhead dropping a secret buoy into the water which makes a pod of whales get suicidal, and ram into a glacier freeing two long-frozen combatants, a huge shark and really huge octopus from millions of years of freezer burn. For some reason the helicopter crashes, and Gibson doesn't know about the buoy, but the helicopter pilot intones over the radio that it's a secret and that it could endanger national security. But Debbie hijacked the sub, right? So why is the secret government helicopter helping her look for whales? What? Huh? This is just the first five minutes of the movie. Unfortunately it gets way less lucid from there.

Shortly Gibson gets fired from her job, and goes to live with her old brilliant professor, Lamar (Sean Lawlor) who was booted out of the Navy for running a nuclear sub aground to avoid hitting a pod of dolphins. Oh yes, there's more true-to-life backstory for you. Meanwhile, a deep-ocean oil rig gets eaten by the giant octopus, while the giant shark gets busy by jumping 30,000 feet in the air and eating a 747 in cruise flight. Truly, Asylum Home Entertainment really pulled out all the stops on this creature feature. And the CGI is so lifelike, too!

There's a lot of extremely ponderous dialogue in the movie, much of it with a brain-addled environmentalist bent, but also lots of terrible pillow talk, ridiculous science talk, and perhaps worst of all, oodles of military and nautical jargon horribly misused by the screenwriters. A favorite example is when in a discussion of the release of the giant creatures Debbie says "Maybe this is our comeuppance." Why would that be? Oh, of course: it's because man is melting the polar ice caps with his global warming releasing these prehistoric predators. The shark and octopus dyad is also analogized to Hurricane Katrina. I am not even kidding.

There are two scenes of shark versus battleship (there are no battleships in the active Navy inventory, by the way, but that is picking at nits) and at one point the shark manages to set a hijacked Finnish oil tanker on fire after it was hijacked by pirates. How did the shark do that? Some unnamed government agency headed by Lorenzo Lamas (as Allan Baxter, complete with ponytail) interrogates Emma, Lamar, and Emma's new love interest, the pointedly Japanese Seiji Shimada (Vic Chao, who probably turns in the best performance of the movie) in a room that Lamar accuses of having "the same lighting as Guantanamo". Got to get every popular anti-government jab in, no matter how laughably executed.

After the eye-rolling exhortation "Sharkzilla's going to own the seas!" from Lamas, the scientists come up with a plan to corral them in San Francisco and Tokyo Bays for the shark and octopus respectively. But how to lure them? While working under armed guard, Emma suddenly feels...urges...and invites Seiji into the broom closet to help shake her love. It's then they get their "ah ha" moment...pheromones! They will synthesize giant octopus and mega shark pheromones to lure them to their respective bays "using UAV technology". Again...what?!? Really?

After the gratuitous destruction of an F-15/F-14/F-18 (depending on which piece of the stock footage you were paying attention to) by an octopus tentacle, we get a load of pontification from Emma analogizing herself to Einstein and Oppenheimer and the decision to build the atomic bomb. (Seriously.) After some submerged action of a highly ridiculous nature, they release the shark pheromone with much ado, the shark accelerates to 500 knots underwater (marine engineers, feel free to chime in on hydrodynamics here) and the Octopus is cornered in Tokyo Bay by similar means. The shark promptly gets loose, eats the Golden Gate Bridge (why?) and Lamas considers the nuclear option prompting disgraced Irish former submariner Lamar to say that the nuclear option is preferred by the US government because "that's the military way." This only goes to prove not only the reflexive ideology of the filmmakers, but their total lack of grasp on actual US military policy, training, or strategy. Not that I should expect much from a movie like this, of course.

Emma decides that the way to get rid of them is to have them battle each other, so a flotilla of navy ships and submarines puts to sea with more pheromones attracting the two combatants to each other. All goes about like you would expect, with massive causalities ("All five ships destroyed by octopus!") and Emma and Lamar taking their submarine through an ice floe to lose the pursuing shark (which is, of course, impossible if he can swim faster than most jets can fly). Obviously the final smackdown happens in good time, and amid clouds of ink in a ferocious battle, the two prehistoric killing machines sink out of sight. Are they dead? Wait for the sequel.

The film ends with lovebirds Emma and Seiji planning their future dreamily on a beach (their chemistry is...uh...amazing) when Lamar walks up and requests their services to help identify another giant life form in the North Sea. Groan.

I gave the film three stars. I would have given it four for camp value but the complete ignorance of the subject matter and portrayals of the US military as idiots lowered the rating. Submariners are not likely to mutiny by pulling a pistol on their skipper, but then again they aren't likely to battle a giant shark either. This film takes itself way too seriously for the subject matter, but would have made an excellent MST3K. This would make an excellent Christmas gift for the lover of cinematic cheese in your life.

This movie has about as much imagination and creativity as the title!
My brain took a REAL BEATING watching this one! I really could not believe my eyes.
This film contains the worst acting in the history of cinema! It is typical TRASH from Asylum. They had such a great opportunity to make a fun giant monster movie and they blew it! They should take all the original negatives from this film, burn them, then bury the ashes in an undisclosed location, put the director in a Turkish prison, then make all the actors pay restitution to an oceanographic institution of their choice. This disc would make a better use as a urinal cake!!
This TRULY is one of the worst films I have ever seen. You have been warned!!!

You have to see to believe how bad this movie is, not to mention the acting and directing....makes ed wood look like coppola

I don't see how they could have possibly made a worse film. I'm a huge fan of campy horror movies (I own all the Godzilla, Ghidrah, and Gamera films for example, as well as a nice collection of horror cheese from Lake Placid to House). I've always enjoyed such things. Yes, I even own many of Ed Wood's cinematic atrocities.

But, as others have said, this film doesn't even qualify in the "so bad it's good" category. Some years ago I wrote a column called "Zippers". In it, I would point out the mistakes made in films. Sometimes it was as small as a cigarette burning backwards and other times it was something huge like the self-repairing yellow Porche in "Commando".

This alleged film has so many errors that I was constantly distracted from the movie itself. For example:

1. The actual battle that the movie title comes from takes place after an hour of each creature being in separate oceans.

2. The battle is mostly made up of 2 or 3 clips, each about 2 seconds long, played repeatedly as jump cuts.

3. Several times we see the massive shark roughly 10 yards behind a sub. Yet when the sub fires the stern torpedoes at the beast, the creature is nowhere to be seen and we see the torpedoes racing through a completely empty sea.

4. A sub - complete with a super secret joystick driven control panel AND turbo power - is reported as 20 meters away from hitting an undersea rock outcropping. Roughly 20 seconds later, a crewman announces that they are now 15 meters away. Then, after still more time passes, just 10 meters away. I could row a danged destroyer quicker.

5. Ahh never mind. There were over 75 such errors I found just in a single viewing of this Blu Ray. If I were to really list them, we'd be here for days even without me complaining about the massive loss of life in Japan that we are told about, but never get so much of a glimpse of. Way to save on the budget guys!

This clunker is more lame than a 1-legged man with a broken ankle.

I've read bad reviews of films I love hundreds of times. Some people just don't appreciate the pure campy joy of watching a deliberately cheesy movies like the Puppet Master series from Full Moon studios (or anything else Full Moon produces for that matter) or the trash masterpieces from Troma studios. This is not one of those. I LOVE such brainless fun!

Fans of the type of "funny" and low budget movies that Roger Corman built his career upon - take this from a fellow cheese-a-holic and MST3K junkie. If you buy this movie you will lose money, time out of your life, and quite possibly lower your IQ by several dozen points. If you can't survive without seeing pictures of an adult Debbie Gibson, just surf the web or watch the trailer online for free. Her presence is only there to create a curiosity factor (much like Tiffany in Mega Pirannha) and her acting while not atrocious, is not reason enough to watch this movie.

Since viewing, I've scrubbed and scrubbed and just can't get rid of this unsightly film.

Lets get a very poor computer simulation of a giant shark jumping out of the water and bring down a commercial 737 airplane. Wow!!!!SURE LOOKED REAL TO ME. Everything in this movie is bad except Debbie Gibson (She's pretty) but she can't act. She should have stuck to singing. Lorenzo Lamas must have had some important bills to pay and was desperate for money. Why else would he or anyone else want to be in this trash can of a film. You want to see the movie. Look at the cover. That's about as good as it gets

IF IT WERE POSSIBLE, ZERO STARS OR -5 WOULD BE A BETTER RATING.

Just watched this "movie" on SyFy Channel. I will never get that 2 hours back. There are some very poor movie shots of USS Missouri (BB-63), which is identified as a "destroyer." The commanding officer of this destroyer is a Submariner, not a surface sailor (not in my navy). Later they show a foreign Frigate and identify it as another US Destroyer, once again a submarine CO. Did the writer, producer, director, ever even hear of the US Navy. let alone interface with it? Since when does the Modern US Navy run submarines in "Wolf Packs?"

Alright, enough about the Navy Bloopers. Dialog, special effects, script, "acting," and everything else is just abominably poor. Read a book, take a nap, get drunk, just do not waste time on this farce! Worst movie of the century award should be given. This movie makes me long for the old "B" Movies of the 60's.

I fully believe that this was re-released under a different cover because the reviews of the original were so bad. This was like watching a Porsche wreck by running into a Ferrari, so bad it makes you want to puke, but you just have to see it. No matter how bad it gets, it then gets worse.

"When the shark bites, with his teeth dear, CGI blood starts to spread. But as octo-pi have green blood, there's never (no never) a trace of red..."

I spotted this in the $5 bin at Best Buy, and couldn't resist.

"MS vs GO" is beyond ludicrous. The sight of a (roughly) 1000-foot (!!!) shark leaping into the air a height several times its body length (!!!!) and snatching/snacking an airplane (!!!!!) has to be one of the most-idiotic scenes in the history of motion pictures.

The acting and directing are on the same level. The actors exude an almost-continual cheeriness that's completely out of place. The director has no concept of pacing or tone. He doesn't make the least effort to create a sense of fear or dread, or even /frighten/ the audience, something that even awful '50s flicks attempt.

If "MS vs GO" is /supposed/ to be a spoof, ya coulda fooled /me/. The closest it approaches satire is the way the Japanese scientist (Vic Chao) talks like the scientists & reporters in a Godzilla movie. The writer (one "Ace Hannah" -- is that the screenwriting equivalent of Alan Smithee?) misses many opportunities to skewer the genre.

The CGI is cheap-looking, but appears to have been so expensive (relative to the minuscule budget) that the same shots are used over and over and over again. Even after the shark has bitten off part of a tentacle, the following scenes show the octopus intact. The shark more or less resembles a shark, but the octopus looks like a cheap plastic toy. And when they finally battle it out, it looks like /two/ cheap plastic toys struggling in a bathtub of dirty water. Say what you like about the films surrounding them, but Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion animation had /style/, something utterly missing from this film. The closest it gets to style is -- what appears to be -- the dying octopus waving "bye-bye" at the end.

A great party flick. But make a note of the best sections so you can skip to them. Your friends aren't likely to tolerate sitting through all 90 minutes.

In a brilliant bit of bad movie magic, 2011 heralds the arrival of the epic SyFy channel original movie "Mega Python vs Gatoroid." Not only is this another stunning example of a creature feature showdown between unlikely foes, it brings the estimable talents of two former pop princesses together. If you lived through the late eighties, you'll instantly be attracted to the idea of seeing Tiffany and Debbie Gibson go at it in a full fledged catfight. The film's comic rivalry is ludicrous and delightful! It's inspired casting, to be sure, because both ladies have previously graced the small screen in films featuring mutated monster mayhem. Debbie Gibson got the ball rolling with "Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus" while Tiffany took on "Mega Piranha." For the record, the star rating system used to evaluate these films will, obviously, be adjusted for a bad movie criteria. What makes a bad movie great? In my opinion (and my opinion only) it's the fun quotient and the commitment of the actors.

Here's my breakdown of the three films:
5 Stars: Mega Python vs Gatoroid (not yet on DVD)
4 Stars: Mega Piranha
2 Stars: Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus

In Shark vs Octopus, two giant prehistoric sea creatures are unleashed from their arctic tomb after some whales go wonky and crash into the ice. Mortal enemies, these two beasts also seem to be aggressively anti-man for within minutes they are chomping on (or squishing) boats, planes, offshore drilling platforms--basically anything they can sink their teeth in or wrap their tentacles around. Debbie Gibson is a researcher who may have the key to ending their reign of terror. With an old professor and a Japanese love interest, they whip up an intoxicating batch of pheromones to lure each of the creatures to a trap. Silly humans! Gibson tries to corral the shark in the populated San Francisco Bay area (why not?) but that leads to disaster. Maybe the only solution is for the two animals to battle each other! Despite some amusing graphics, I didn't have a lot of fun in this picture. Gibson and crew (including the most un-militaristic military man I've ever seen, Lorenzo Lamas) are a little too relaxed. Gibson's theatrics never rise above mild flirtation, so I didn't feel like enough was at stake in this bit of silliness.

I had no such qualms, however, about Tiffany's performance in Piranha! That's what makes this film such delightful nonsense--the actors act like the fate of the world rests in their hands. They sell it. In Venezuela, a batch of experimental piranha have been released into the river system. When a US diplomat is devoured, Greg Brady (I mean Barry Williams) sends a meathead (I mean analyst Paul Logan) to uncover the assassin (strangely enough, no one suspects fish initially). With Tiffany on hand as a local scientist, she and Logan must battle a corrupt militia and toothy fish that double in size every few hours. It's fast, frantic, and exceedingly silly especially as fish start flying into buildings--but the actors, once again, rise to the challenge at every opportunity. No, they're not good per se, but they are committed! It comes down to a rather dubious solution (where are pheromones when you need them?), but with no other creatures to battle--the piranha must destroy themselves.

Python vs Gatoroid really is the combination of everything sacred and good about these two films. Played with unabashed comedic elements, it embraces the silly so brilliantly--it's impossible to resist. Gibson and Tiffany are rivals (Debbie digs the snakes, Tiff is down with the gators) and the film mines all the possible pleasures this pairing can provide. Add the delightful Kathryn Joosten, some drugged chicken carcasses, a surprise musical guest, more delicious pheromones, hillbilly wisdom, and the aforementioned fight (a food fight no less--just what was that in Tiffany's cleavage?) and you've got a camptastic spectacular! A great bad film that's definitely in on its own joke, it's viewing nirvana. With two pop divas and three films, SyFy has set a new standard for absurd cinema! KGHarris, 2/11.

The title should say, "Don't expect much." I expected a bad script, bad acting, bad science, and bad special effects. In that regard I wasn't disappointed. If you decide to turn it off after a giant shark jumps out of the water and takes a jet out of the sky, wait. We later find out they can travel 500 knots, but have trouble catching a nuclear sub doing less than say, 40 knots. No wait. These nuclear subs have something called "emergency turbos" so maybe they can go faster. Sailors on nuclear subs don't carry handguns. Really. Who would they shoot underwater? At one point they flash the locations of the recent attacks. Nearly all were in the Pacific ocean as expected. There were 3 in the Atlantic. As Sarah Palin might tweet, "WTF?" These creatures for some unexplained reason are impervious to conventional weapons so the military led by our secret government kidnaps three scientists to employ them for information on how to kill them. They get right on the task by mixing water tainted with various vegetable dies. We discover red water added to blue water makes purple water and that blonds love Japanese men who try to act like Sulu as much as Orientals love blonds. After a romp in a closet, they figure out they can lure the creatures into certain ports (San Francisco and Tokoyo) which have a natural shelf and then trap them. The idea being they can get in, but somehow they can't get out, unless they catch a ride with a plane flying overhead. They then manufacture a phermone of an extinct animal for which they would normally have no idea where to start. We know they are successful because when they mix two liquids together it turns florescent green and Debbie Gibson smiles.

At one point Japanese and American subs are in the same area. All the American subs are destroyed but one. The Japanese civilian scientist asks, which one is it, as Debbie or now Deborah Gibson is on one of them. The captain says, "No way of telling." After making subs (this film and Moby Dick) do all kinds of things beyond any smidgeon of realism, they claim they "can't tell." Really they can tell. Each sub has its own unique underwater signature.

The creatures look very artificial. But what did you expect? If you enjoy getting stoned and watching Lost in Space, give this one 5 stars. Movie drops f-bomb once, no nudity, no sex scenes.

Illegally used sonar equipment causes whales to go crazy and intentionally run full throttle into the continental ice shelf. This breaks open part of the ice and releases a prehistoric octopus and shark that had been frozen in suspended animation. All of this is witnessed by former 80s teen pop star Debbie Gibson (Whoops. Sorry. I meant Deborah. I feel like the intern who accidently called Rick Schroder "Ricky" on the "NYPD Blue" set) who had taken a minisub for a joyride! This costs our sexy oceanographer her job (which would, technically, put her "Out of the Blue"... lol... hehe... get it?... As in deep, blue sea while referring to her first album?... darn it, I'm showing my age.), but doesn't stop Debs from further investigating the event with her old Irish teacher after she finds a reeeeally big tooth in a washed up whale carcus. Throw in a Japanese scientist and a militant Lorenzo Lamas and we have ourselves a makeshift A-Team on the hunt for our thawed out and ticked off devils of the deep. Any more cheese accumulation and Wisconsin would probably sue. Only problem is, the case would get thrown out of court for being plain old boring and unsatisfactory. The monster scenes are far too minimal and repetitive (it does not count as a different shark scene just because the picture is flipped to show him swimming a different direction), while we're subjected to a lot of scientific gibberish and, yes, a romantic subplot. Even Doc Noc's guilty pleasures for cheap monster mashes from "The Asylum" cannot overcome this flick's faults. A Mega mess. 2.75/10