Written by Jack Perez (as Ace Hannah)
Directed by Jack Perez (as Ace Hannah)
Runtime 88 min.
3 out of 5
Watched this thing last night.
Okay, let’s see . . .
Cool premise. I mean, really, a big shark versus a massive octopus? That just reeks cool.
The story was more or less solid. Some parts were predictable, especially the “how to get rid of them” part.
The acting . . . well, aside from Deborah Gibson, who I thought was the most believable in terms of how she presented her character (except when she screwed around with Vic Chao, which seemed really out of the blue), needed lots of work. Seemed forced in a lot of ways, but this is a B-movie we’re talking about so I was willing to not nitpick the acting because I just wanted to see shark vs octopus action.
The special FX were okay, a 6 or so on a scale of 1-10. Some stuff looked super fake. Others, namely the underwater sequences, looked real. My only issue with the underwater stuff was that you lost all sense of scale because there was nothing to compare these guys to (as compared to when the shark took a huge bite out of the Golden Gate Bridge). However, you did get your sense of scale when the submarines tried to take the shark on.
The shark vs octopus fight was pretty good. How often do you see a giant octopus wrap its tentacles around a shark’s entire body? I just wish, though, there was the budget to drag it out because the fight was kind of short-lived and was very simple in terms of the “fight moves” from each creature. Likewise, other shots of the creatures throughout the movie were just a glimpse here and there.
On a fun scale, this gets an 7 out of 10, but my official rating is a 5. I think there was better acting in Transmorphers, and, well, guess I am nitpicking a little.