Fight!
Movie: Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus (2009)
Director: Ace Hannah
Starring: Deborah Gibson, Vic Chao, Lorenzo Lamas
Written by: Ace Hannah
The thing I don’t like about any of the Monster versus Monster films that have popped up over the past decade is that the ending is almost invariably the same. Some dick humans are going to get caught up in the film’s epic conflict and somehow, improbably, they’re going to come out on top. Even if they don’t take out the combatants outright, enough innocent bystanders are going to escape the arena. It’s the same problem I have with the shitty new Transformers movies: human beings should have no place in the plots of what are essentially gladiator films. At best, Johnny Human should be a shocked bystander; more often, he should be cannon fodder.
Thus, while I was easily excited by the prospects of a film with such an awesome title like Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus, I knew that some shaved ape jackoffs would inevitably stick their noses into this epic aquatic combat. I was not disappointed. Yet having ex-teen pop star Debbie Gibson in the title role provided an interesting way for the humans to triumph. After all, what better way to defeat underwater monstrosities than by unleashing the Electric Youth?
Instead, she breaks out the White Lightning.
Sadly, this film does not heed by my punny strategies. Instead, Commodore Gibson must combat the menaces at the behest of Lorenzo Lamas, the Steven Seagal of television. Lamas plays a dickhead government functionary who forcibly recruits Gibson, her Irish mentor, and her soon to be Japanese lover (soon to be her lover, I mean, not imminently Japanese), into war against the monsters. While her boyfriend joins his countrymen to combat the Octopus, Gibson, Lamas, and the teach board the USS Electric Youth – captained by a guy who looks disturbingly like the great Chris Penn – to go after Mr. Shark. The humans lead the beasts into each other’s presence, and a nautical argument which might have resolved peacefully goes sour.
What Would Captain Chris Penn Do?
This movie is a titan of bad CG and absurdity, but there are two scenes which deserve special praise. The first comes after the opening credits, which takes a panoramic view of mountains and helicopters, two places traditionally safe from sharks and octopi (in theory). In her stolen minisub, Commodore Gibson is shown in certain shots typing with a left hand bearing black nail polish, while her right hand, in a different angle, features clear nails. A naval code, perhaps? Yet when her right hand is shown typing, it also has black nail polish! Durr.
But the greatest thing in this movie? The scene in which THE SHARK LEAPS OUT OF THE OCEAN AND DESTROYS AN AIRPLANE.
Jesus Fucking Christ.
They’re making a sequel, and Urkel’s in it. I’m not joking.
* * *
[As a bonus, here’s how things would have really gone down.]
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Y Marks the Spot 
It’s one thing not to let kids read the Story of O or 120 Days of Sodom but I wonder what the hell goes thguroh the minds of people who ban innocuous stuff like Lemony Snicket or Harry Potter.Even the Vatican stopped telling catholics what book they can and cannot read decades ago..Perhaps teh banners should be forces to read my two dads, why is my daddy now my second mummy? and (shreik) the Origin of Species!