Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus

I had high hopes for Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. Come on, it has Lorenzo Lamas in it. You know it should be cheesy. Plus, there’s like three sequels to it. But it was just okay and at some points kind of boring. 

<img src="megasharkoctopus.jpg" alt="Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus.">

Photo Credit: The Asylum

Released: May 26, 2009

Runtime: 88 mins

Director: Jack Perez

Writer: Jack Perez

Actors: Lorenzo Lamas, Debbie Gibson, Vic Chao

PLOT

Two behemoth creatures from the past cause destruction throughout the word. Can a small group of scientists be able to stop the Megalodon and giant Octopus before they kill thousands of people?

MY THOUGHTS

This is not the kind of movie where you can keep track of the kills. The Megalodon brought down an airliner, a military plane, and several military ships and submarines. The Octopus brought down at least an oil rig. Seeing the shark jump out of the ocean and bite into the airliner was actually pretty cool.

The acting was a bit cheesy but not as bad as some of the SyFy style movies. The two most “famous” people are Lorenzo Lamas (for lots of cheesy movies and TV shows) playing Allan Baxter, a super secret military operative and Debra Gibson (singer from the 90’s) plays Emma a scientist who discovers the creatures.

We start Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus with Emma and a coworker in a minsub studying whales. Unknown to them the military was setting off some sort of sonar devices that were breaking off pieces of ice. This reveals a megalodon and a large octopus frozen in a death fight. Emma gets a glimpse but must escape before they are killed. 

The creatures escape and start causing havoc. The megalodon brings down an airplane, and a military ship. The octopus destroys an oil rig. Emma believes there’s something out there but she loses her job and nobody but her old professor believes her.

Her and her old professor Lamar receive the video that the submarine she was in took and shows both the megalodon and the octopus. They start trying to figure out what’s going on when Seiji Shimada, a Japanese researcher comes to them for help. He believes that something large was causing their incidents (which there was, the octopus).

Allan Baxter has the three kidnapped and have them try to find a way to stop them. They did figure out that using pheromones will attract them. However, none of the known world weapons (other than nuclear) had any effects on them. Finally, Emma just said that they should just let them fight it out. They were found in the ice fighting, so why wouldn’t they fight each other now.

So they set up a plan and after many submarines are brought down because of the octopus, they finally get the two fighting each other to the death. We end the movie with another possible sighting of overly large creatures.

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Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus suffers from two main issues. One is the lack of cheese. There just wasn’t enough cheese for my liking. They tried to make it into a “real” movie instead of embracing the cheese. And the second it was just kind of boring. There were several points that I was just like “come on” and “why isn’t this over yet”. I guess if you want a more serious shark movie you can try this, but if you want the cheesy fun of shark movies, this isn’t it. Acting was ok and the idea was good but just not executed that greatly.

And now for your Forever Final Girl Exclusive…Did you know?:

  • The first Asylum production to have a theatrical release.

  • When Emma is interrogated, Baxter describes Emma’s "career is all washed-up." That's a reference to Debbie Gibson's music career, which reached its peak with the album Electric Youth in 1989, but floundered in the 1990s.

  • There’s at least 3 sequels to Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus: Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus, Mega Shark Versus Mecha Shark, and Mega Shark vs. Kolossus

Have you seen the other Mega Shark movies? Check out my other reviews here: Mega Shark Franchise.

Let’s get into the rankings:

Kills/Blood/Gore: 2/5

Sex/Nudity: 0/5

Scare factor: 2/5

Enjoyment factor: 3/5

My Rank: 2.3/5

IMDB: 2.5/10

Rotten Tomatoes: critics:  1.9/10  audience:  2/10

Letterboxd: 1.4/5