Review: JURASSIC WARS – SHARKTOPUS VS PTERACUDA (2014){0}
Stars: Robert Carradine, Mario Ceara, Katie Savoy, Akari Endo, Tony Evangelista, Mario Arturo Hernández, Rib Hillis, Alan Nadal Piantini, Conan O’Brien | Written by Matt Yamashita | Directed by Kevin O’Neill
If you thought it was only studios like The Asylum who were cranking out giant sea creature flicks for Syfy you’d be completely wrong – Roger Corman and his New Horizon Pictures are still producing the kind of cheap and cheerful monster movies that Corman made his name with to this day. Only unlike The Asylum, Corman and co. don’t seem to want to keep to just giant monsters… Instead they’ve cross-bred their monsters as time has gone on – no longer are they satisfied with plain-old Supergator, their first giant creature flick; nope they’ve brought us the crazy combos of Dinoshark, Dinocroc (who took on Supergator in 2010), Piranhaconda; and their craziest giant killer creature combination, Sharktopus.
Not one to rest of their laurels – or waste a good concept – New Horizon have taken their most famous creation and teamed him up against another dinosaur/sea creature mix, a la Dinoshark, in Jurassic Wars: Sharktopus vs Pteracuda – a film that is just a crazy and insane as the title suggests, only this time Sharktopus is the hero!
But how is this possible you may ask? Well the original Sharktopus was blown to smithereens, however that didn’t stop HER from giving birth to an offspring. Offspring that survived her mothers destruction, by floating away in the egg sack of all things, and is rescued from the ocean by waterpark trainer Lorena. Years later mad scientist Dr. Rico Symes (played with aplomb by Robert Carradine) lets loose his latest creation, the Pteracuda – part pteradactyl, part barracuda, – a new bio-weapon, programmable by computer don’t you know, in the fight on terror. Only his creation goes awry and he must enlist the “help” of Sharktopus to stop it. Only, as anyone whose seen any of these films, nothing goes according to plan and both Sharktopus AND Pteracuda wage war on not only each other but also the tourist and locals partying at the beach (in what is THE biggest Jaws pastiche ever seen in these types of movies).
I love a good, intentionally bad, Syfy monster movie such as Sharknado, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, 3-Headed Shark Attack, etc. Whilst the films are often terrible, there’s just something irresistibly cheesy about them. However those are Asylum movies and this is not… But I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt due to my love of the genre – big mistake. Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda does nothing to improve on the original film, even adding a second giant sea creature and throwing in a terrorist sub-plot can’t save this film from the most evil of movie follies – dullness!
It doesn’t help that director Kevin O’Neill plays the entire film as seriously as possible – this is a goddamn monster movie with ridiculous CGI for heaven’s sake, there’s no way you shouldn’t play this tongue in cheek! The film doesn’t even acheive any level of camp either – surely that should be engrained in this type of genre film? Playing things seriously would work if the cast we up to par but, save for the three leads, most of the cast can’t act for toffee. Robert Carradine, Katie Savoy, and former Extreme Makeover: Home Edition crew member Rib Hillis – who uses the construction skills he showed on THAT series to build A-Team style weaponry to fight the titular creatures – ride roughshod over the rest of the cast, who are nothing more amateur-hour bit-players.
Of course anyone who watches a movie called Jurassic Wars: Sharktopus vs Pteracuda should know what they’re in for and save for being incredibly dull, this film delivers. Probably one to watch on TV rather that pay hard earned cash for the DVD, the film is worth suffering through just to see talk show host Conan O’Brien anally penetrated by a Sharktopus tentacle and then have his decapitated head used as a volleyball!
Jurassic Wars: Sharktopus vs Pteracuda is released in the UK on July 11th courtesy of High Fliers.
