Blog # 20 Sharktopus

I’ve picked on a lot oldies and some were good, but they all shared the same common dilemma in production; they didn’t have a lot of money.  Then there are some films having tremendous resources without tremendous results.  What happens when producers and directors set out to make something bad?  If it isn’t bad does that make it a failure, or could it become an accident?  You will just have to decide for yourself.

Sharktopus (2010)

Director	Antonio Margheriti
The Main Players
Eric Roberts	Nathan Sands
Kerem Bursin	Andy Flynn
Sara Malakul Lane	Nicole Sands
Liv Boughn	Stacy Everheart

Synopsis: 

            The unholy splicing of genetic material from a killer shark and gravity defying octopus culminates in a creature on a killing spree after its mad scientist creator employed by the military losses electronic remote control over it.  (Wow!  That was cleaver.  Eat it IMDB.)

Review:

            Is there some sort of special entrance exam to become a genetic scientist?  Did anyone think of just putting a little question and the start of the application like do you plan on making a hybrid between two deadly creatures to make something unstoppable with an incurable taste for human flesh?  I took communication and there was an ethics component in every class.  Do these guys sit around saying I can’t wait for grad because I’m going to make the most hideous killing machine ever?

            Nathan Sands is that kind of guy.  With his previous military/scientist partner he created shaktopus so the Navy could have something to replace former SEAL Jessie Ventura (would have been a better film with him in it).  During testing sharktapus has its version of the invisible fence dog collar clipped off when encountering the propeller of a boat, and the plot is set into motion.  Sharktopus is confused and struggles with an identity crisis trying to determine what instincts to follow.  Like a confused mini-wheat it can’t decide to let the sweet octopus side pick meals, or will it be the shark side be setting the menu.  When you toss a coin in the air and it lands on the side there’s only one option left; eat people wherever you can find them.  In this case it’s off the coast of Mexico where people go missing often and it usually gets blamed on poor vacation planning.

            I hope you like CGI, because if they took it out of this one there wouldn’t be much to see.  This film was so bad I’m not even sure if Eric Roberts was real.  Like sharktopus he looked real but didn’t act like him.  You can’t even be sure if the water was real.  The only thing I saw that couldn’t be disputed was the images reflecting in the LCD screen during a cross fade; that guy looked seriously confused.  The only part that made any real sense was when Andy was asked to come out of retirement to help because he was the only one who could do it.  After shooting that thing with guns, grenades, and tranquilizer darts he fights it off with a big stick.  Why didn’t they think of that sooner?

Lessons Learned:

• Adding on eight tentacles to a shark does not improve killing efficiency; still just one nugget at a time.
• How long until this thing can get to the Jersey Shore and does it take requests.
• This thing would make Marineland so much more interesting.
• Might have been a lot more fun if they had made the head part from the tentacles and that beak thing.
• Take a few minutes to visit the IMDB and read the absurd notes by nerds picking apart the authenticity of Sharktopus.  Crazy man!  That would be like creating a two hour PowerPoint presentation on how you don’t use a hammer to fix a Rolex; no point to it.

Blog # 19 The Wild, Wild Planet

Long before the Looney did its version of the swan dive dipping so far below the value of the U.S. dollar that it made West Coast Canada look like the new Hollywood, there were other places in the world suitable for cheap film making.  Italy was the birthplace of the spaghetti western that helped create the legend of Clint Eastwood.  Like they say, you have to churn out a lot of crap before you get a masterpiece.  This isn’t a masterpiece but it might be a piece.

The Wild, Wild Planet (I criminali della galassia) (1965)

Director	Antonio Margheriti
The Main Players
Tony Russel	Cmdr. Mike Halstead
Lisa Gastoni	Lt. Connie Gomez
Massimo Serato	Mr. Nurmi
Carlo Giustini	Ken, Lieutenant

Synopsis: 

            The commander of an orbiting space station is recruited to become the chief of a special task force leading terrestrial authorities in the hunt for who or whatever is responsible for the mysterious disappearances of people on a daily basis that’s growing exponentially.  (Did I mention space chicks play a big role?)

Review:

            Listen up helium head.  Yes friends, the depiction of your cranium filled with an inert gas is what passes for putting down one of your friends in jest in this very bleak and boring picture of our future.  In this one, our future looks like something inspired by Lego and Meccano but without all the fancy bits.  We are supposed to be wooed by the introduction of some crappie looking monorail thing that’s essentially just a Chinook helicopter model with the rotors removed and suspended on a wire.  What wonders await us?

            We start off in orbit around the earth on the standard sci-fi spinning doughnut space station where our hero Cmdr Mike Halstead is putting up with an annoying scientist Mr. Nurmi conducting medical experiments by growing human organs.  Nurmi is a solid knob easily rating 9.5 on the updated Richter Knob scale.  This guy’s mad scientist ego would make Marry Shelly shake her head a few times, and she invented the best.  When you’re on some other guy’s space station it isn’t advisable to hit on his woman, but Nurmi can’t help himself when he catches a glimpse of Lt. Connie Gomez.  He wants to get together with her real bad, but not in the way you might think; more creepiness later.

            Eventually Mike will have to rescue her from Nurmi, but in the meantime he is sent to Earth so he can head up a special task force charged with discovering why people keep going missing.  It’s quite comical.  Incredibly great looking models wander around with dorky looking guys with black capes and ball caps and abducting people by shrinking them down to doll size for transport.  It kind of makes sense in the end if only because the close ups are so comical and at one point they rescue a guy when he’s only half shrunk.  Even in the Italian version of Hollywood there is no shortage of jobs for dwarfs. 

            I’ll spare you the ridiculous chase scene where the cars look like bicycles with kayaks mounted on them, or the idiotic rescue of the Cmdr by flying machines functioning in a way best described as YoYo drive.  Skipping right to the end we learn Nurmi has a plan for him and Connie involving more than just sharing a few tender moments.  His intention is the grafting of their two bodies together in a hermaphroditic union creating a super being, or a novelty act.  Either way it’s not a good thing but Mike manages to stop him just in time.  Man I hope they make a remake of this one.  A slight adjustment to the ending and we would get to hear Arnold say, “Hey Nurmi.  Go F@#% Yourself!”  Cinema the art form at its best.

             

Lessons Learned:

• Space Stations have the coolest discos with real starlight.
• Lasers and blowtorches look and work very similar in the future.
• It’s better than waking up in a motel bathtub packed with ice and missing a kidney.
• Even in the future airport scanners can pick up the little people in your carry-on. 
• How much to have something enlarged?
• Experimental dance/theatre is just as dumb and boring in the future as it is now.
• How the hell did Star Trek happen after these idiots?