Mega Marbury v. Giant Madison

Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus (2009)
Directed by Ace Hannah (Jack Perez)
Screenplay by Ace Hannah (Jack Perez)

Debbie Gibson, Lorenzo Lamas, a shark and an octopus and also Debbie Gibson and some more Debbie Gibson. I’ll admit that if someone came to me with a credible plan for a project and asked me to contribute somewhere between 15 and 75 cents toward it using the above statement as a sales pitch, I might consider contributing as much 55 cents toward that plan. Maybe even an extra dime on account of Debbie Gibson.

Emma MacNeil, submarine biologist....Deborah Gibson (She followed up this with the fabulous Mega Python vs. Gatoroid) Just go ahead and admit it. You’ve been wanting to see her in a film. The only thing you desire more is to see a miniseries of Far From the Madding Crowd with Susanna Hoffs.
Seiji Shimada....Vic Chao (The Division, 24)
Lamar Sanders, Emma’s formerly alcoholic Irish professor....Sean Lawlor (By the Sword Divided, Not Another Not Another Movie, 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea) We know this character is Irish because the writer has practically put him in a leprechaun outfit and handed him a pot of gold in his first scene. “Obviously I’m Irish because I’ve called you ‘lassie’ mentioned being an alcoholic and done a little jig all in a matter of seconds.”
Allan Baxter....Lorenzo Lamas (This performance is nowhere near as hilarious as Blood Angels and I can assure you I never imagined I’d be saying that.)
Vince, Emma’s navigator...Jonathan Nation (Mega Piranha, Death Racers, War of the Worlds 2, 2012 Doomsday, #1 Cheerleader Camp) Mr. Nation speaks for all of us because he is the embodiment of The Nation.
Dick Ritchie....Mark Hengst (The Cook) Hengst, you’re so brilliant in The Cook. It’s a shame to see you relegated to mookdom in this film.
Takeo....Michael Teh (Lost Colony, Breaking Point, Blood for the Gods, 2010: Moby Dick)
Kenji....Chris Haley
U.S. Sub Captain....Dean Kreyling (100 Million BC, The Terminators, Transmorphers: Fall of Man, 2010: Moby Dick) In the back of your mind was the thought that playing a sub captain would make you as cool as Sean Connery or at least put you in the same league as Jurgen Prochnow, Clark Gable or Cary Grant. But, alas, you’re the sub captain in a shark/octopus movie, which makes you expendable.
Helmsman....Dustin Harnish (100 Million BC, 18 Year Old Virgin, The Terminators)
Sonar Chief....Stephen Blackehart (Tromeo and Juliet, Rockabilly Vampire, 100 Million BC, PG Porn) I refuse to make fun of you for being gainfully employed, Stephen Blackehart.
Marine Biologist....Dana DiMatteo (Transmorphers: Fall of Man)
Deputy...Myles Cranford (Mega Piranha, Titanic II, Milf)
Naval Officer...Dana Healey (Dr. G: Medical Examiner)
Weapons Officer....John Bolen (The Call of Cthulhu)
Japanese Typhoon Captain....Larry Parrish (The Republic) In the back of your mind was the thought that playing a Japanese sub captain would make you as cool as Toshiro Mifune. But, see above.
Typhoon Navigator....Aki Hiro (Amateur Porn Star Killer 3D: Inside the Head)
Admiral Scott....Russ Kingston (Kitten vs. Newborn) You’re probably thinking “If only Kitten vs. Newborn had the kind of giant budget that Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus had.”
Sub Commander...Stephanie Gernhauser (Mega Piranha, Intercourse with a Vampire, Sports Ballz, A Rogue in Londinium)
Sonar Tech...Cooper Harris (Mega Piranha, Intercourse with a Vampire, A Rogue in Londinium)
Destroyer Captain....Matt Lagan (2010: Moby Dick, Titanic II, Mega Piranha)
Navigator....Mikos Zavros
Destroyer Sonar Men....Hunter Ives, John Gilligan (Never get on a boat with a man named Gilligan.)
Radiomen....Michael Allendorf, Colin Broussard
FBI Agents....Nathan Sikes, Daniel Schachtel, Elijah Flores
Blackbird Pilot...David Meador
Pilot/Deck Officer...Jay Beyers (Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, 2010: Moby Dick, Mega Piranha, Transmorphers: Fall of Man, The Dork of the Rings, Harvey Putter and the Ridiculous Premise, Princess of Mars)
Passengers....Michael L. Parisi, Michael Drummond, Molly Drummond, Emily Lavigna, Michelle Hodnett, Silje Gruner, Joey Ruggles, Knayi Clement, Sex Henderson (Princess and the Pony, The 7 Adventures of Sinbad, Mega Piranha, Meteor Apocalypse, Dragonquest, Princess of Mars) Yeah, you’d think with a name like Sex Henderson this guy would have gone a lot further in this business than playing a passenger on a plane eaten by a shark.
Flight Attendant...Dana Tomasko (Meteor Apocalypse, 2012: Supernova, MegaFault) MegaFault? How did I miss that one? Are they going to make a sequel called MegaFault vs. Giant Cloud?
Sailor...Brandon Plemons
Background persons...Conrad Lihilihi, Rebecca Helm, Andre H. Bassett, Artem Shatokhin, Jason Covington, Alan Woods
Background....Craig Childress (also a Background Partygoer in 18 Year Old Virgin)
Jay Cynik (Zombies of Mass Destruction, Punch) Angela Guerrero, James Rolls, Julia Torchine, Sharon Stockbridge (Sunday School Musical) Some people are background “persons” and some people can only aspire to background personhood.
Michael Masters....David William James Elliott (Malcolm in the Middle, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Teen Titans, That ‘70s Show, Hitman, The Dark Knight)
Oil Rig Supervisor...Jack Perez (aka Ace Hannah, the director of this film)

Director of Photography....Alexander Yellen (Titanic II, 2010: Moby Dick, Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus) Other people just can’t capture the cinematic beauty of giant sharks the way Mr. Yellen can.

When you have a director whose other credits are Wild Things 2, The Mary Kay Letourneau Story, Monster Island the only reasons I can think of for doing this film under a fake name are delinquent taxes, delinquent child support or some sort of arcane Director’s Guild rule about having to pay extra dues for making a shark movie. Seriously, what do you have to gain or lose by using your real name on this film? Ace Hannah? Did you think it would matter to me if you used a directorial nom-de-plume that sounds like you should be out hunting wildebeest or finding cursed diamonds guarded by monkeys?

This film is about climate change, oceanic weapons testing and corporate greed. It’s also about a giant shark and a giant octopus who are pitted against each other in an eternal struggle of titanic proportions. But it’s never really about the giant monsters, is it? It’s not like this is a monster film which genuinely revolves around the struggle between the monsters. Ultimately it’s all about how the humans can put the large fishy genies back in the bottle--or, in this case, back on/in ice.

Now, the opening credits feature some of the most magnificent shots of snow-capped mountains ever seen on film. Truly. I can’t believe this was shot specifically for this film, but it doesn’t matter, because it is truly beautiful footage, even if a snow covered mountain range is not the image I would naturally select as the background for the words “Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus.” We do eventually get some underwater shots (a school of fish, a tiny research submarine, a hammerhead shark) before we are told that we are in the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska where the Aviation & Missile Command is conducting Sonar Testing. This consists of blowing crap up next to a glacier. Unbeknownst to them (and vice versa) there are some marine biologists conducting research of their own as large chunks of glacier just keep falling off. (See, I told you it was about climate change.)

Emma: Vince, it’s okay. Why are you so nervous?... Just relax and enjoy it. There’s poetry here.
And if the movie ended right now, I’d have to call it a winner. You will notice that she is speaking this line while her right hand his gripping the joystick control of the submarine. And while the poetry in question is an unusual school of hammerhead sharks, it’s pretty to imagine these lines in another context.
So, the military industrial complex is testing sonar and launching missiles into the glacier. This is the dumbest test of military technology since George Washington walked around Valley Forge with pumpkins on his feet instead of shoes. The government sonar sends a huge herd of whales right at Deborah Gibson and her tiny submarine. Then the government helicopter (cleverly disguised as a civilian model), crashes into the glacier. This causes a near fatal situation for the tiny vessel of science, but for a brief second we see a large shark frozen in ice just as the ice starts to crack. Now, in the real world that would mean that there’s a large frozen shark stick that is about to sink straight to the bottom. But we know the title of the film, so we know that this means the shark was cryogenically frozen and is now ready to shake off its slumber and resume it’s position as contender for the role of apex predator. Also, a large octopus/squidlike thing takes off in the midst of the whales and thus our chief antagonists have taken the field.

Next thing you know we’re on the Kobayashi Subsea Drilling Platform. This subsea drilling platform’s greatest trick was in convincing people that it didn’t exist. Or maybe that was the greatest trick of the giant octopus that eats the whole platform.

And now we’re in Point Dume, California (Previously known as Point Dumb.) where Emma is only now dealing with the aftermath of her disastrous Alaskan adventure. Did they just fly all the way back down to California on the same day, or was she so traumatized that it’s taken her a couple of days to start comprehending the giant sea beasts she thinks she saw? Here at Point Dume there’s a mammoth whale carcass on the beach and Dick Ritchie is there to tell everyone that the wounds on it were caused by a tanker’s propeller. Yep. They’re seriously still trying the old “it was a boating accident” gag.

EMMA: You know I’m right, Dick. There’s something big out there.
And it’s not you, Dick.

So, the government and its scientific cronies are looking to cover up the evidence of giant sea creatures that are killing regularly large sea creatures. Meanwhile the Japanese are trying to isolate the only survivor of the Kobayashi. And that’s when we switch to a Condor Airlines Flight where we briefly meet a flight attendant and some passengers before the guy who’s getting married in a couple of days says “Holy Shit!” and sees a giant shark leaping up toward the plane. Yes, the Mega Shark is so huge that it can leap thousands of feet into the atmosphere and grab a jumbo jet to eat. I can only imagine that this must be the shark equivalent of biting into aluminum foil, but maybe sharks like the feel of metal crunching on their teeth.

DICK RITCHIE: Want some advice?
EMMA: Nope.
DICK: Don’t love the ocean too much. It doesn’t love you back.
That is so true. The ocean just takes and takes, but it never really gives back. Not the way you want it to. Because it’s a body of water, and most likely not a sentient entity.

Emma and Vince manage to sneak past security in the middle of the night to get samples from the suspicious whale carcass before the cover-up squad pulls it out to sea. Then she meets up with her mentor and they proceed to do science. By “do science” I don’t mean sex. I mean “do science” as in looking through a cheap microscope, putting some things in beakers, then magically digitalizing a mound of data which a magical computer proceeds to redraw in the shape of a giant shark tooth.

LAMAR: Who do you think it belongs to?
EMMA: I don’t know. You’re the ex-navy paleontologist guru.
LAMAR: Yeah, well that’s true enough.
Let’s hold the boat here for a second as we look at the savage brilliance of this pair of lines. Ex-Navy Paleontologist Guru? Did that require a double major? Not only is that line utterly contemptuous of the mentor/student hero structure (and every little bit of sarcasm directed at the conventions of that tradition is worth its weight in smoked dewback ribs) but it also manages to hamfistedly throw in a chunk of exposition with it.
And then, as if that wasn’t enough the old man says “that’s true enough.” Brilliant. “Why, yes I am an ex-navy paleontolgoist guru, what of it?” We shortly learn that the old man got kicked out of the navy for running aground a nuclear sub to avoid hitting a pod of dolphins.

And then, enter the love story. In this case the love interest enters in the form Dr. Seiji Shumada, who does “wild diving bell” experiments. Let me take a second to appreciate the fact that our main character is a woman and that she is the driving force in this film. From here on out Seiji is definitely a major part of the story, but he is the love interest for Emma and not the other way around. You don’t get to see that often in any film, so I think it’s worth appreciating for a second. Have you taken a second to appreciate that? Good.

SEIJI: Amazing. Two prehistoric creatures suddenly and mysteriously unleashed upon the world.
EMMA: Maybe not so mysteriously. Polar icecaps are melting because of our thoughtlessness. Maybe this is our comeuppance.
And there you have the crux of the environmental guilt theme of this film. If we weren’t busy melting ice then maybe we wouldn’t be punished with this fishy scourge.

Speaking of the fishy scourge we have a cocky US destroyer captain who takes on the giant shark and thinks he destroys it. (He’s cocky because his destroyer is actually a battleship, not that the stock footage people care.)
When the captain is informed that the target hasn’t been destroyed he says “It rises.” This is the most ridiculous line I’ve heard since...well, since the other day when I saw Darth-freaking-Vader screaming “Nooo!” So, actually, “It rises” is no longer the most ridiculous line I’ve ever heard. The destroyer/battleship is then consumed by the shark, whose lust for metal has clearly been ignited by the jumbo jet appetizer he/she consumed earlier. About now the Mega Shark should be looking for an old schooner to use as a toothpick.

Then the government shows up to cart off our heroic trio to the Treasure Island Naval Air Command center where they are held in a darkish room.
LAMAR: Same lighting as Guantanamo.
SEIJI: I feel very secure.
And the secret government detention jokes continue.

BAXTER: Don’t look so worried, Doctor Shimada. You’re not going to Manzanar.
GIBSON: No, Manzanar was for Americans.
BAXTER: Very good, Miss McNeil.
Manzanar was one of the detention facilities for Japanese-Americans during World War II. Suddenly this film got a lot more interesting as the main characters have taken on a curiously anti-authoritarian bent. We knew this layer of conflict was going to pop up, but this is a seriously bitter fight.

BAXTER: I suppose you’re wondering why we’ve wrested you from your lovely slumber.
How did he know their slumber was lovely?
LAMAR: Let me guess...Our country needs us.
BAXTER: Kewpie doll for the Irishman.
Wait a minute! There are prizes? If I answer the next one right do I win a pint of Guinness?

So, the guy with the ponytail wants our trio’s help in going after the Shark and the Octopus. But they won’t cooperate unless he gets a haircut and then assures them that the plan for the animals is strictly containment and not annihilation. And they do have a point. I mean, how many chances are you ever going to get to see a giant shark and a giant octopus. On the other hand, one of them ate a drilling platform and the other one ate an airplane and a ship, so is corralling them into Tokyo Bay and San Francisco Bay really all that feasible? How do you make sure they stay where they’re supposed to? They eat ships and large structures. I don’t think you’ll be able to contain them in the bay.

At any rate, more “science” is done, this time in a fancy lab that is lit like an Erasure video. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Erasure video, so maybe it’s more like what I’d imagine an Erasure video would be lit like. And if I was going to kiss Deborah Gibson, it would probably be in the middle of an Erasure video. Anyhow, Seiji and Emma share a kiss in the lab. And, because doing science makes people incredibly horny they take a walk all the way to the broom closet (yes, you can actually see the brooms and mops) and they play around with their own mega shark and giant octopus. Okay, we don’t actually see any sharks or octopi in this scene and it’s tastefully short and skips directly ahead from pre action to post action. More “science” is then done. My favorite part was when the heroic trio is kneeling in front of a countertop to see Emma pour something into a flask causing the liquid to glow.
I’m guessing they couldn’t use any of the existing glowing chemicals in the world and thus had to discover something that would make a shark or octopus glow. Actually, I’m not guessing anything because I, like the rest of the audience, don’t really care about the actual merit of the “science” they’re doing. They might as well be eating shrimp and reading Henderson the Rain King for all we care. That’s the counterpoint to all of the “we melted the ice and caused this” hand-wringing in this film. Because it’s the lack of real scientific curiosity perpetuated by the entertainment industry that isn’t helping the world. “My brain hurts when you talk about real science. Show me some real housewives from rich zip codes now!”

So, what is all this glowing science leading to? The plan is to lure each of the beasts into a bay by synthesizing pheromones for them. This is a metaphor for the entertainment industry, luring people into their traps with the promise of sex.

BAXTER: How can we be so sure they’re gonna take the bait?
LAMAR: Those guys have been frozen in ice for millions of years. Wouldn’t you be a little horny?
I’m a little horny now just thinking about being frozen in ice for millions of years. But what if they’re not horny? What if they’re just sad that all their friends are dead? Or, worse yet, what if they’re sad AND horny?

EMMA: I keep thinking about Einstein and Oppenheimer. The magnitude of it. The destruction.
Speaking of destruction, the octopus scores a point for swatting down a jet fighter, but the shark sates its taste for warships with another destroyer in San Francisco Bay and then it actually takes a bite out of the Golden Gate Bridge. Oops. Guess being teased with the idea of sex only makes a shark hungry for more metal.

Meanwhile the octopus makes a noise that sounds like Jabba the Hutt and gives chase. There are multiple submarines in the water chasing around the shark and the octopus. The game is afoot.
This is when Stephen Blackehart gets to say the line that every submariner has always dreamed of saying someday.
Captain! Octopus approaching. 300 metres off the port bow.

There’s a tense moment when the helmsman on the US sub goes nuts and pulls a sidearm on the captain but this is resolved with Emma’s right hook and Lamar’s experience as a submariner.
From here on out it’s all Mega Shark and Giant Octopus action. The shark is so powerful that it can shrug off direct hits from torpedoes. (That’s Godzilla level strength.)
In a disappointing case of mutual killing the shark and the octopus kill each other. (The shark makes a sound like a wounded weasel as the octopus crushes it with it’s last bit of energy.)
LAMAR: Looks like they’ve finally finished what they started 18 million years ago.
In a way, it’s like a western where two aging gunslingers meet up after many years only to die together.
It’s refreshing that this film lets the two creatures die without a hint of bringing one or both of them back from the grave and it’s nice that the heroic trio all survive (even Lorenzo Lamas, the minion of intrusive imperial government makes it). Seiji and Emma have found love and a quiet stretch of beach to enjoy the sunset.
But the call of adventure is still there as Lamar shows up with a file about some sort of odd life form in the North Sea and Seiji and Emma light up because this means more science, danger and broomcloset sex.

So, in the case of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus I have to say that the effects were good enough for a couple of fun sequences and the story is...well, it’s not the most awful thing in the world. If you want to see a shark eating a bridge or a jumbo jet or an octopus smoking a submarine like a cigar, or if you just like Deborah Gibson, then this is your movie.

In the end, the critique of scary government is subsumed (the government is less scary when it's being eaten by a shark or an octopus) there isn't a real corporate villain at the end, so it really is an adventure movie with science. Or "science."