As In Any Good Trilogy, This Time Around The “Hero” Battles Himself
Main Cast: Elizabeth Rohm and Christohper Judge
Director: Emile Edwin Smith
With the giant octopus and the crocosaurus out of commission, what’s a mega shark to do next? Battle a mecha shark, of course.
In the third and, hopefully FINAL, installment of The Asylum’s Mega Shark series, we find a new shark in town, this one spilling from a melting iceberg that’s been towed into Egypt to help with a drought. The shark breaks free of the ice and wreaks havoc until the US military is able to design and build a mechanical shark of equal size, programmed and piloted by husband and wife team Jack (Christopher Judge, “Stargate: SG-1”) and Rosie (Elizabeth Rohm, “Heroes”). But they’d better hurry, because the mega shark is destroying everything in its path and it’s migration pattern suggests its trying to find something to mate with.
Things are going as well as can be expected until the AI program installed on the mecha shark malfunctions and the mecha then starts to tear up Sydney, Australia while the mega shark is destroying naval fleets left and right in the water.
Once again, a truly ridiculous movie that isn’t helped by a dumb story and cheap CGI effects. On the bright side, the effects this time around look slightly more developed than the previous movie.
Rohm and Judge are nearly up to the challenge of bringing their cheesy characters to life, but sometimes screenwriter H. Perry Horton’s (2-Headed Shark Attack) dialogue is just too hard to believe came out of a human mouth.
Director Emile Edwin Smith has given up any pretence he’s making a serious movie, though, and lets the ridiculous flow. On the bright side, he doesn’t let that carefree attitude cause the movie to dissolve into parody. This is a dumb movie that wears its dumb with pride.
It’s certainly more comprehensible and entertaining than the previous installment, Mega Shark Vs. Crocosaurus, I’ll give it that. However, in the end, we’re still watching and talking about a movie called Mega Shark Vs. Mecha Shark. I mean with these kind of life choices, do I have ANY room to criticize?
I enjoyed the homages to the previous two movies, mentioning that this is the third mega shark to appear, as well as Debbie Gibson reprising her role of Emma MacNeil from the first movie, Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus. Granted, she’s barely in it and probably filmed her scenes in an afternoon, borrowing a high school chem lab for a few hours. Still, that tie helps complete this universe of silliness and try to take it a little more seriously, for whatever that’s worth.
In the end, it’s still Mega Shark Vs. Mecha Shark, so whether good or bad, YOU have to decide whether to see it or not, and then live with those choices.
C. Dennis Moore is the author of over 60 published short stories and novellas in the speculative fiction genre. Most recent appearances are in the Dark Highlands 2, What Fears Become, Dead Bait 3 and Dark Highways anthologies. His novels are Revelations, and the Angel Hill stories, The Man in the Window, The Third Floor, and The Flip.
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