Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus Review

What does one say about a movie like Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus? The name alone really spells out what kind of B grade horror movie this really is. Add to that the film stars Debbie "Electric Youth" Gibson and Lorenzo "Renegade" Lamas and you begin to understand that expecting anything from this movie except good time awfulness is setting yourself up for disappointment.

Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus is nearly as stupid in execution as the title is cool. The plot, if you want to call it that, is that for reasons too ridiculously stupid to go into a Megladon Shark and a Giant Octopus are unfrozen and start wreaking havoc on the world by attacking ships, airplanes and oil rigs. So, yeah, that's about it plot wise. From there people run around and try to stop them.

I can only assume writer Jack Perez (writing under the pseudonym Ace Hannah...I shit you not) has either been writing this schlock for so long he thinks he's good or he was beaten in the skull by a rabid monkey with a pipe. MSVSGO is so cliched that it almost reads like a joke movie. Just check out the by-the-numbers plot points

1. Debbie Gibson plays a rogue scientist who bucks authority but knows the oceans. She's also the only one who believes there is something wrong.

2. She works for a place only referred to as "The Institute" They never say if it's a Secretarial School Institute or a Research Institute, it's just The Institute.

3. Her mentor she goes to for help is a "crazy" hippy Irish professor type known for his rogue ideas and she was his favorite student.

4. The "Institute" fires Gibson for her rogue ideas and for stealing a mini-sub for reasons they never go into.

5. The military won't listen to the scientists rogue ideas and instead try to kill the beasts with disastrous results.

Are you starting to sense that you've seen this movie before?

So really the only reason to see it is to marvel at how bad it is. The acting is so bad, so wooden that a regional high school theater troupe from a tiny town in a low traffic area would look at it and laugh. Gibson can't deliver a line without smiling, which really is counterproductive to the scenes when the 1000-foot shark and gigantic octopus are attacking her ship. Her "Mentor" doesn't fare too much better by way over doing the "crotchety but funny and lovable" thing. Halfway through the film he serves no purpose other than comic relief, which doesn’t work ever at all not one time, NO WAY!!

The main reason to watch this movie is for the Lorenzo Lamas, The Shark, The Octopus and the third scientist played by Vic Chao. I guess all the time away from the show Renegade dulled Lamas's rubber-knife sharp acting chops because he is a fresh and new kind of awful here. It's not all his fault; his character doesn't make any sense.

Lamas the tough-as-nails Government Guy who comes to the three scientists for help with Mega Shark and Giant Octopus. In an attempt to make him seem like a jerk he starts throwing around insults for no reason and barking orders that make no sense. Watching him you just can't believe that the director yelled "CUT PRINT" after his scenes.

Shark and Octopus wise it's a bad combination of mid-nineties video cartoon animation and Robot Chicken style stop motion animation. Neither creature looks real but they are fucking big, I'll give them that. I particularly loved how the Mega Shark took a bite out of the Golden Gate bridge and literally bit it in half, the whole bridge. That seems a little large for even a Megalodon Shark don't you think? I guess the Octopus was harder to animate because he isn't really in it very much. There's lots of Shark fin but that's about it.