DVDs this Week (12/21/10)….

I thought “Dismal” was your one-word review of “Cyborg 3.”

As for “Mega-Shark vs Crocosaurus,” well–Asylum, fool me once…

The next one should be “Mega-Shark vs. My Complete Disinterest.”

Ken – yeah, maybe some more effects would have carried MS vs GO into a more enjoyable state…but as it was, I found it almost depressing. It felt so rote and by-the-numbers…in a sense, like the old AIP films that were made after the title and poster tested well with distributors. I realize they’re not going to get Martin McDonagh to write these things, but it almost seems as if, to Asylum, “screenwriter” means “loser who drew the last film position out of the hat.”

I also bought it after seeing the admittedly great trailer. That’s why the MS vs Croc trailer makes me think, instead of “Cool,” “Oh, like I’m going to trust you again.”

I love The Asylum trailers. They show you all the good stuff so you don’t actually have to watch the movie. Very considerate of them.

If you’ve never seen an Asylum movie Mega Piranha is really the one to watch. A bad movie by every stretch of the imagination but done so with an undeniable amount of enthusiasm and imagination.

Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus… I’m still unsure to make of what I just watched. It appears to have been made with the mentality that because this is supposed to be nothing more than a big stupid monster movie nothing has to make sense in the slightest and we should just overlook the myriad of continuity errors, both technically and script-wise. There’s no denying there is some amusement in watching this train wreck of a movie yet at the same time I frequently felt like there was a flagrant disregard for my intelligence as a viewer.

Examples:

The Crocosaurus emerges from a cave. The next shows us the Croc standing in front of the cave that it is now so much bigger than the cave entrance appears to be smaller than its throat.

A female government agent introduces herself as a special agent for NOAA and later introduces herself to someone else as a Secret Service agent. Which is it?

The movie is chock full of such errors I’m convinced they either began filming without a script or they desperately needed a script supervisor to keep track of such things.

Absolutely more action than the previous Mega Shark movie but the trade-off is that the action occurs in micro bursts, the computer effects are infinitely worse looking than in either of the previous Asylum “mega” movies, the titular fight is mostly just a series of underwater tail/fin biting death spirals, and do not expect a single moment anywhere near as epic as the megalodon shark biting an airliner out of the sky in the original.

The original is charmingly quaint compared to this overly aggressive, carelessly rushed follow-up. I felt like I was watching anime: nothing made any damn sense and the characters were constantly speaking in loud, declarative statements; that is when they weren’t outright yelling their dialogue.

PS – You can rent Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus from RedBox for a buck. I’m glad I didn’t pay a penny more.

Isabelle Adjani can take me hostage any time.