Confessions of a Film Junkie: A review of “Mega Shark vs.
Meca-Shark
By: Brian Cotnoir
You know this blog
wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t review at least one film that’s trying to rip
off “Jaws”. It’s sort of becoming like a
little tradition. Every year I have to
review (or at least watch) one awful movie about a Shark and the ridiculous
hi-jinks that ensue. In 2012, I reviewed
“Sand Sharks”, in 2013 I reviewed “Piranha” (1978) and “Barracuda” (I saw “Sharknado”, but didn’t write a review because I felt like too many
people had already reviewed it and I felt like had nothing new or original to
say about it that hadn’t already been said).
The film I’m reviewing today
is called “Mega Shark vs. Mecha-shark”. “Mega
Shark vs. Mecha-Shark” is the 3rd film in the “Mega Shark”
trilogy. I must admit I have not seen “Mega Shark vs. Octopus” yet, and I’ve
only seen bits and pieces of “Mega Shark
vs. Crocosaurus”. The Mega Shark films were created and distributed by “The
Asylum” film studios; the same film studio that gave us films like “Sharknado”,
“Titanic II”, “Paranormal Entity”, and a bunch of knock-offs of well known big
budget Hollywood Studio films. I would
describe The Asylum film studios straight video works as this generation’s
equivalent of Joe D’Amato Productions.
In a way there films almost feel like poorly acted bootlegs of other
more successful films. I’m not going to
waste anymore of your time, let’s get check out “Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark”.
It's soooooo realistic |
So
the film opens up in the Port of Alexandria in Egypt. A Ship is hauling in a giant iceberg to help
treat a drought in the area. As the ship
spends more time in the warm desert waters, the iceberg begins to crack, and out
from it emerges the giant megalodon. The
once again freed megalodon proceeds to swat a tug boat out of the water and
decapitates the sphinx. The megalodon
goes on to wreak havoc in the world’s oceans, shutting down the sea trade and
putting the entire world’s economy in jeopardy.
The United States Navy is fed up with the massive and destructive
megalodon and has created a equally as big mecha-shark to combat it. The mecha-shark can be piloted manually but
also can be controlled by a computerized auto pilot named NERO. The mecha-shark tries to stop the megalodon,
but it only ends up creating destruction.
Torpedoes bounce of the megalodon’s skin and he swats them with his tail
to sink submarines and battle ships. It isn’t until Professor MacNeill (played
by Debbie Gibson) notices that the megalodon is on its way to Australia to look
for a breeding partner do they have a way to track and corner the mega
shark. Unfortunately for the U.S. Navy
the mega-shark knocks the Mecha-shark into the Sydney Opera House, where it
enters amphibious mode and goes on a citywide rampage. Now they have two big problems: the megalodon
destroying everything it comes across in the ocean and the mech-shark running
amuck in downtown Sydney. Now it’s up to
our heroes to come up with a way to stop both destructive creatures.
Oh....Debbbie Gibson |
All right, I know I shouldn’t nitpick
ANYTHING released by “The Asylum” because most of their films would be
categorized as “Mock-Busters”, but I honestly don’t feel like they tried very
hard with this one. What I mean by that
is almost everything they produce and release has a ridiculous premise (ex. A Tornado
made up of sharks, a 500 MPH wind storm, a giant mechanical shark battling a
massive prehistoric shark). It’s all
done with terrible CGI that makes SYFY look like Pixar and always contains some
D-List Celebrity. They have their
filmmaking formula down to science, but yeah this one left me feeling pretty
empty. At least with “Sharknado”—as bad as it was—it still had
a ridiculous enough premise that kept me watching, and you can tell they were
having a lot of fun making this film, but with “Mega Shark vs. Mecha-Shark” it
just kind of feels like they gave up half-way through; like they felt it would
be a good enough with what they had.
Maybe it’s because it was a sequel or maybe because the mega shark engine
finally ran out of steam, it just felt very bland.
I don’t want to waste
too much time nitpicking the other flaws of the film, so I’ll just itemize a
list here to save you some time.
1.)
The Mecha-Shark
seems like a much more complicated (and expensive solution to your
problem). Why didn’t you just bait and
nuke the megalodon, because I think the Mecha-Shark did 1000 times more damage
than a nuke every could have done
2.)
It’s so obvious that you were trying to make the
voice of NERO sound like the voice of KIT from “Knight Rider”, so why didn’t
you just hire William Daniels to do the voice?
I mean seriously; you’ll shovel out money to have Debbie Gibson reprise
a role, but you won’t pay William Daniels to read off of a script? What’s wrong with you?
3.)
The Megalodon’s accuracy is too accurate. How the hell can it swat a tugboat in
Alexandria that travels 134 miles to decapitate the Sphinx in Giza?
4.)
When the film setting goes to Australia how come the
U.S. Military outranks the Australian Military?
Seriously, all Jack does is tell a soldier, “I’m with the United States
Navy” and the soldier doesn’t even put up a fight, he just lays down and quits
like a cowardly Frenchman. If I was an
Australian soldier, I would be offended by the weak and cowardice portrayal
from this film.
Keep trying not quite Tony Todd |
The acting
in the film I felt was decent, the only real critique I had was that I felt the
actor playing Jack was trying too hard to sound like Clancy Brown meets Tony
Todd, other than that, I can’t really think of anyone whose performance in the
film was just meh. So what about this film? If I had to rank it, I’d say I liked it more
than “Sharknado”, but I liked it less
than “Sand Sharks”, and if I had seen
both of its predecessor films, I think I would’ve enjoyed it more. As a film it’s okay, it’s nothing I would
rush back to watch. The CGI is terrible,
but that’s to be expected and I’ve seen worst.
I think my best recommendation for you would be to binge watch all three
films in a marathon (preferably with friends) and then never watch them again.
That sounds as wonderfully ridiculous as the sand worms on syfy. I'd watch this with a pint of whiskey and some friends
ReplyDeletethis movie is obviously a ripoff of Godzilla vs mechagodzilla
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