Sunday, December 9, 2012

Jurassic Shark

"Dinosaur from the deep"
Dinosaur from the deep? Is that even a tagline, or it is supposed to be some sort of plot synopsis?

When you've watched enough monster movies (about three or four is probably enough) you know what to expect when you see another movie that has the work "shark" in the title. Crummy actors, bad special effects, unmotivated sex scenes, you know the drill.

Jurassic Shark does indeed take you to that special "what the hell were they thinking"-place, but does it so much more than most other movies. The actors are so bad I'm not really sure they're actually trying, or if it's some sort of parody movie.
The special effects are about as bad as you might expect, with the shark growing and shrinking in size between takes, and water surfaces that remain undisturbed by a megalodon swimming close to it.

There is something special here though. The first ten minutes are only the intro, which is kind of remarkable for a movie that's only 75 minutes long. About five of those minutes consist of two women standing in bikinis in knee high water and splashing water around. Not really at each other, I guess they didn't like the idea of getting wet (especially after getting to know each other so well during a hopefully awkward scene at the beach), just mostly splashing in general. Eventually, as the splashing continues, they are suddenly in deeper water even though they didn't actually walk anywhere. Cue the shark.

A bit later in, a team of wannabe scientists, I guess maybe it was a school project, but who cares, come to the same area to find some possible illegal oil digging, and spend the day at the beach. It's never explained how this can be combined, but whatever. Sharks, amirite?

At the same time, a team of criminals who just stole a painting sit on the beach and pretend they're in a getaway boat. The boat doesn't have an engine. They are trying to escape from a robbery with a row boat. Script writers are rarely this awesome. Anyway, they also get attacked by the shark, someone dies, the stolen painting is lost in the sea and now has to be retrieved, even though it's just covered by some taped together plastic, so it's obviously absolutely ruined the second it's under water.

I kind of stopped caring about the story at this point and just enjoyed the interesting acting and the weird things that occured. People throwing dynamites and getting blown up, others being eaten by an enormous shark even though they were standing i 20cm deep water, that kind of thing.

An interesting thing is that they seem to have stolen the whole prehistoric shark idea from Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, except they skipped the ice. The megalodon in Jurassic Shark has just hidden in some underwater pocket somewhere for million of years. I never really understood how that worked, but that's most likely because it was never explained in the slightest.

Edit: Actually, the plot synopsis XBMC finds for this movie read "When an oil company unwittingly unleashes a prehistoric shark from it's icy prison [...]". I'm pretty sure they never actually say anything about ice in the movie, but at least now we know they didn't just steal part of the idea from Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, but rather the whole thing.

You should absolutely watch this movie. It will surprise you in so many ways, and you will laugh more than you have for weeks. But like with all monster movies, don't watch it by yourself.

IMDb
Trailer

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Nazis at the Center of the Earth

"Dead...
but not gone."
I'm sure everyone heard of the finnish sensation Iron Sky, in which astronauts uncover a hidden nazi base on the moon, triggering an all out war between earth and the moon nazis. Pretty good movie, although not really mind blowing.
I'm also pretty sure most of you haven't heard of the mockbuster version of Iron Sky, Nazis at the Center of the Earth, the movie this review is about.

While Iron Sky was entertaining, it didn't really surprise me, I kind of expected most of the things happening in the movie.
Nazis at the Center of the Earth on the other hand is pretty insane. It's almost impossible to wrap your head around the events unfolding, mostly because the characters act like complete idiots and do things you would never expect a human being to do, but that is of course kind of the point of mockbusters.


Researchers (why are there always scientists fucking up in these movies?) running around in Antarctica fall down an ice shaft and manage to discover an enormous opening under the ice containing a whole landscape. Mountains with forests, plains, nazi headquarters, if you can imagine it, it's there.
Of course, they get captured and eventually discover that one of the scientist have been in on the whole nazi-hiding-in-ice-conspiracy all along. Not really surprising, but it's presented in an absolutely awful way. It's pretty great!

There's honestly not that much more to say, some characters get killed, other try being heroic, Hitler shows up in a mechanized armor.
Oh wait! Hitler shows up in a mecha!
Yeah, this movie is fucking epic.

After watching movies like 200 M.P.H. and Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, I was starting to lose faith in The Asylum. Nazis at the Center of the Earth turned that frown right upside down.

IMDb
Trailer