MEGASHARK VS CROCOSAURUS
DVD region 2. Metrodome.

The Asylum got a lot of press for Megashark vs Giant Octopus, thanks to a hilarious trailer and the sheer insanity of the idea, but all that goodwill tended to vanish once people got to see the rather slow and uninspired movie itself.

Still, it obviously made enough money from the unsuspecting to justify this sequel, where the surviving prehistoric monster shark is pitted against an equally massive crocodile that appears out of nowhere in the Congo and then escapes into the sea after somehow (I defy anyone, including the screenwriter, to explain exactly how) being sedated and captured by croc hunter Nigel Putnam (Gary Stretch). Putnam teams up with naval shark expert Terry McCormick (Jaleel White) and laughably intense Special Agent Hutchinson (Sarah Lieving) to track and destroy both monsters. For some reason, the crocosaurus has been laying thousands of eggs since emerging from its lair, and the megashark is keen to eat these tasty treats. Somehow or other, this sees the croc trashing Miami, the shark battling naval ships and swallowing nuclear submarines, a rather nondescript fight between the two monsters and Robert Picardo chewing the scenery as he anticipates smoking his victory cigar.

One thing has to be said for Megashark vs Crocosaurus – it’s certainly pacier than its predecessor, director Christopher Douglas Olen Ray (yeah, a second generation Olen Ray!) keeps things moving along. But it makes no sense at all – it’s as if a whole bunch of ideas where mashed together without any effort to combine them into a coherent story. Characters pop up and disappear, the monsters appear, wreak havoc and vanish without explanation and little of the story holds up. For instance, Putnam is shipwrecked after the megashark wrecks his boat and allows the sedated croc to escape, yet within minutes he’s in a bar ordering drinks and being found by Hutchinson, who couldn’t possibly have known he would be there. This is definitely a no-brainer movie – think about how little of it makes sense and you’ll wind up with a severe headache.

Unfortunately, while the incoherent storyline is something I could live with, the shocking level of acting really drags it down, while the godawful CGI – and there is a lot of it – scuppers the whole project. I’m more than happy to watch and love films with ropey effects, but the level of CGI used here might well be the worst I’ve ever seen.

I really want to enjoy these monster mashes from The Asylum, and rival productions like Sharktopus show that this sort of self-consciously trashy DVD fodder can by entertaining. But while this is a considerable improvement over the first Megashark scrapathon, it still fails to really hit the spot. It might provide some post-pub amusement, but on the whole I fear this is for the giant shark and crocodile completists only.

DAVID FLINT

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