Mega Sharks!

Some movies are so bad they’re good, and some movies are just ... bad. My husband and I enjoy watching them both and I thought it would be fun to share the best of the worst. So without further ado, here’s my bad movie review of the week. I leave it up to you to decide whether the movie is bad, or just the review. ;-)

Still keeping with the theme of shark month here, and it just wouldn’t be the same without a nod to the Mega Shark franchise. For some reason I thought there were more of them, but apparently there’s only four (maybe it just seems like more).



We start with: Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus. In a nutshell ... okay, you can’t really do a nutshell summary, but I’ll try and be as quick as possible: A pod of whales off the coast of Alaska go a little crazy after the military drops experimental sonar transmitters into the water. They start ramming an iceberg, freeing a frozen megalodon (giant shark) and giant octopus which had been locked in battle when frozen. They go to their separate corners to thaw out because the octopus attacks a drilling platform off Japan, while the shark leaps thousands of feet into the air to bring down a commercial airline.

Emma, an oceanographer who was fired from her job after borrowing an experimental sub without permission, teams up with her old professor and a Japanese scientist to figure out what exactly is on the video she filmed in Alaska - turns out to be both the mega shark and the giant octopus. Meanwhile, the mega shark eats a naval destroyer, which the navy takes a dim view of, and the three are shanghaied by the authorities to stop the monsters.

There’s several failed attempts, with a lot of collateral damage (more boats, a couple of subs, the Golden Gate Bridge), before the two giants are finally brought together in an ice trench off the coast of Alaska where they fight to the death. If you’re a fan of shark movies, this one is worth watching if for no other reason than to see the mega shark jump 15,000 feet into the air to grab the plane.



Next we have Mega Shark Vs. Crocosaurus. Apparently the megalodon wasn’t quite as dead as we thought at the end of the first film, because here he is again chewing up more navy vessels. At the same time, in the Congo, we have a 150 foot long crocodile who’s tranquilized and then loaded onto a cargo ship headed for Florida.

Mega shark attacks the ship, inadvertently freeing the crocodile. Turns out old croc has been pretty busy laying eggs all over the place and there’s nothing mega shark likes better than crocodile eggs and it starts eating them. This kind of ticks off the crocodile who invades Miami and then Orlando.

The military uses more eggs to attract the creatures to the Panama canal where they duke it out, but at the same time we have a bunch of eggs that were laid along the American coastline starting to hatch. The hatchlings attack the Santa Monica pier while the grown ups take the fight towards Hawaii. The military uses as sonic emitter to lure the all of the creatures towards an undersea volcano which erupts, killing adult and baby creatures alike. The world is safe again, until the next movie.

You really want to see this one because I’ve barely touched on all the action and destruction, and come on, who doesn’t want to see a 150 foot crocodile stomping through Miami?



The third movie in this series is Mega Shark Vs. Mecha Shark. This one starts with the mega shark being released from an iceberg that’s being towed into the port at Alexandria, Egypt, to begin its reign of terror. Scientist Emma McNeill (again played by Deborah Gibson) is back to warn the military that the reason the mega shark is so aggressive is because it’s looking for a mate.

To combat this new threat, a prototype submarine, the mecha shark, was created and is piloted by the team of Jack and Rosie. While Jack stays in the control room, Rosie pilots the submarine, with the help of an AI computer system called Nero, and goes after the shark. She tries to shoot it with a torpedo but manages to sink the USS Virginia instead. Oops!

Man, the US navy really takes a beating from these mega sharks! The best scene is where the mega shark launches upwards towards a commercial airplane (just like in the first one) and then mecha shark launches upwards and they bounce off of each other.

As the mega shark swims towards Syndey, Australia (where it was spawned millions of years ago), the mecha shark is having computer problems as Nero goes on and offline, decides all humans are evil because there were soldiers pointing guns at it, and becomes amphibious and terrorizes the streets. Now we have two giant killer sharks on the loose!

Jack and Rosie manage to get inside the mecha shark and get Nero back online, and then escape again before the mega shark bites into the side of mecha shark, setting off a torpedo that destroys them both. Sushi anyone?



The final entry in the franchise is Mega Shark Vs. Kolossus. In this movie we get the double whammy - a mega shark and a giant robot (a leftover doomsday device from the Cold War) that’s accidently reactivated.

Of course you have to know there’s a lot of senseless destruction, like the mega shark using its tail to bat a submarine into the Christ the Redeemer statue that stands over Rio de Janeiro, navy ships taking a beating, and Kolossus pretty much stomping everything in its path. But there’s also some pretty interesting characters, like the megalomaniac who wants to rule the world, the doctor who wants to preserve the mega shark, and the mentally unstable admiral.

A plan is devised to have the Kolossus and mega shark duke it out. Kolossus is lured into the water by an American flag trailing out of a helicopter and while the two monsters are occupied, everyone tries to stop the giant robot (I guess he’s the more serious of the two threats). The megalomaniac gets control of Kolossus and threatens everyone else into making the world more eco-friendly. The mentally unstable admiral tries to blow up Kolossus with an attack satellite. Kolossus takes out the satellite by tossing the mega shark at it. Yes, all the way up into space. And yes, mega shark is like a Timex watch - it takes a licking and keeps on ticking, because it’s still alive enough for Kolossus to give it a hug just before it self-destructs.

While these movies may not have the increasing campiness of the Sharknado movies, they’re still good for a laugh ... if you have nothing better to do. ;-)