REVIEW: Octopus

I've been meaning to check out this flick for a while... Why, I'm not sure. It just seemed to have the perfect Direct-to-Video Cheesefest feel to it... Giant CGI Creature, no-name cast and an extremely descriptive, no-frill title. So let's train the guns on...

OCTOPUS

And so it begins.

Preview Time!: I was kind of surprised to see Universal Pictures released theis film. It did mean a much larger selection of Coming Attractions than is usual for a DTV monster movie. First up, Crocodile Dundee III, which DIDN'T make me inclined to dash out and rent it. (I did wince a few times, though.) Next up, After The Storm, an action-packed love square, (ie. two couples) adapted from an Earnest Hemingway novel.(!) As it stars Amand Assante and featured things exploding, I'm guessing it was a LOOSE adaption. The Mummy Returns followed. Good preview, but then again it WAS a pretty good film. (In my humble, though entirely correct opinion, naturally.) And finally, Ron Howards' The Grinch. Should have quit while they were ahead.

Nu Image!: Ahh, our production company... I believe their motto is "You Write It, We'll F### It Up At Wholesale Prices!". This is a John Eyres film, I note from the credits. Always nice to see someone take pride in their crap.. uh, work.

The Hunt for Red Stock Footage: We open in 196...uh, something. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, anyway. '62? I suck at history. A submarine full of Naughty Russian types are being persued by some heroic Americanos. (Damn stereotyping...) It seems the Evil Commies are taking a special present to Castro... Radioactive Waste! Well, something radioactive, anyway. Big yellow barrels of it. I fail to see WHAT Castro is planning to do with it... It's hardly spent urainium ready to be turned into Weapons of You-Know-What.

Thinning the Ranks: The captain of the sub uses the usual method to identify him as a Bad Guy. ie., The shooting of an underling. Here it's a sailor who refuses an order. I wasn't so much appaled by this callous act as was intrigued by the incredible sweatyness of the crew. Every single one is awash with perspiration. So much so, they'd probably be less damp if they were OUTSIDE the sub.

Fish in the water!: The Yanks launch a few torpedos at the Red Menace, resulting in some Star Trek-styled "Fling yourself to the floor" antics from the crew. The barrels spontaneously detach themselves from their moorings and begin leaking semi-congealed green Jell-o. Aww, the ocean's gonna taste all limey...

Minor Leak of doom!: Meanwhile, the crew is panicking and drowning. In slow-mo. And on a low budget. So we'll change that to "Flailing around slowly while low-pressure streams of water are sprayed on them." Outside the sub, we spot barrels bouncing off the sea floor at a remarkably high velocity. Okay, which wise-guy fired them out the torpedo tubes? And we gently fade to...

Sofia, Land of Opportunities!: Specifically, the opportunity to shoot really cheap films. After some travelogue footage cribbed from other films, we meet our hero. (And I use that term very, very loosely.)

Roy, the Sp00k!: Yes, Roy our square-jawed hero... well, let's not go that far. He HAS a jaw, I'll admit, but he's hardly the type that screams "Dramatic Leading Man!" at you. In fact he looks like a younger, heavier-set Kyle McLachlin. (Although I'm not sure Kyle would appreciate the comparison.) He's wandering through the streets with his veteran partner Henry. (While lots of Bulgarians peer at the camera crew with mild curiosity, I might add.) After some banter about Henrys experiences back in '52 or '53, they head to the U.S Embassy.

Drag Queen alert!: Roy has a Cute Character moment with a young Bulgarian girl, proving he's a Big Softy at Heart. (Future Skeeter: I think they also proved this later when he got involved in a fist-fight or two.) After some general dicking about, Roy and Henry leave to buy chocolate for the young girl... passing an old lady on the way. Roys' CIA training proves to be a litle flawed... I wrote the words "Drag Queen Alert!" after hearing one sentence from the old biddy. (Think Eric Idle playing an old lady in a Python sketch... you get the idea.) Roy and Henry are completely fooled, however. The "old woman" frigs around FOREVER, even stopping to give the girl a squished sandwich for no apparent reason. Do embassies routinely allow the hopelessly senile to amble freely around their offices? Only in Bulgaria, it seems.

Wait for it...: "She" eventually leaves, but she's "forgotten" one of her bags. The girl finds it, and takes it to her mother. (Calling her "Mommy" in an odd moment. Hardly the most European of words...) Outside, Roy sees the "woman" and realises somethings' amiss. (After about a weeks worth of brainwork, that is.) He turns to run back to the embassy, lest a child get killed in a Hollywood movie. Surely that could never happen, right?

Car-Bomb-in-a-Bag!: Uh, yes they did. In fact, the small carrybag must have packed with a BUTT-LOAD of high-ex, seeing as it blows up no less than four times through separate windows. Roy is all full of remorse at this senseless tragedy. (Which is fitting, seeing as how he could have prevented it by penetrating the "cunning disguise" of the bomber.) He spots the fleeing suspect and it's time for a thrilling...

High-speed foot-chase!: The bomber flees the scene, shedding his disguise as he does. Roy once again proves he was part of the CIA's ill-fated "Hire the Dumbshits" project, grabbing an old lady he's sure was the suspect. The fact her headscarf is RED, not black like the bombers' was seems to rule her out. Meanwhile, the bad guy has dropped a bomb on the street and carjacked an innocent Bulgarian taxidriver.

Pinball and Podgy: Roy bounces off just about everything in his path en route to the suspects location, while the out-of-shape Henry looks on the verge of a fatal heart attack. Henry proves to have an itchy trigger finger, but before he can plug the guy, Roy notices the bomb. He yells a warning to Henry and...

Bye-bye Henry!: It blows up. Must be one of those ACME bombs from the Road Runner cartoons. Nice going, Roy... Henry might still be alive today if he hadn't noticed it! Roy aims his piece at the Mad Bomber, but despite the carnage he's caused, can't pull the trigger. (This appears to be Roys character trait... but they kind of drop the ball by NEVER EXPLAINING IT! To this day, I have no idea why he can't bring himself to shoot. My personal take on it... he's a big, fuzzy wimp.) As Roy waves his gun in a less-than threatening manner, the Black-Hearted Terroist speeds off. Until Henry proves to be only Mostly Dead, and armed with high-explosive bullets to boot. (The third one makes the rear of the car explode. Maybe they salvaged the bumper off a Ford Pinto?

The watermelons ALWAYS get it!: In accordance with the laws of Movie Physics, the car bullseyes the nearest fruit cart. ALSO in accordance with movie physics, mere seconds after Roy drags the Bad Guy out, there's a mammoth...

Car Explody!: Yikes, we're blowing the budget early! I bet that's going to come back and bite the production in the ass later. Henry gets off a few last words and expires. Fare thee well, Henry... and my flights of flabby angles haul thee to thy rest.

Casper, the friendly terrorist!: Oh good, our Designated Bad Guy has a name now. That'll save time. We get a run-down on Casper, International Man of Mayhem from...

Exposition Guy!: I've no idea who he is, or who the other guys he's explaining things to is, or why they're driving through Stock Footage new York in their Stock Footage Limo. But the skinny is that Casper is going to be removed from Bulgaria in a submarine. Bum-bum-bum-BUM! Oh, and Roys' going along too... he's not actually a CIA agent, it transpires. He's a "consultant". Right-o, a consultant who carries a gun and runs down suspects. Fine, whatever. The submarine is commanded by Jack Shaw, who's something of a rbel by the sound of him. (We later learn he ran a submarine aground in '91 while apprehending a boatload of Iraqis. And they gave him ANOTHER one? Sheesh.)

Super-binoculars!: And so, Roy and Casper end up in a picturesque fjord. Or possibly an inlet. Or a bay. I suck at geography as badly as I do at history. Roy lifts his binoculars and sees... a nuclear submarine breaking the surface of what appears to be the Atlantic Ocean. Man, I GOT to get me a pair of those! You could probably watch bacteria dividing with that sort of magnification. Roy meets up with Jack Shaw, Rebilious Captain. After some brief banter, they board the Good Ship...

USS Roosevelt: Which is strange, since I'm sure one of the Roosevelts dragged America OUT of a Great Depression. (Unlike this movie, which has the opposite effect.) Inside, we meet the Designated Octo-Snacks... okay, the crew, but it's really only a matter of time.

Party time!: Man, has the navy relaxed it's rules somewhat? I wasn't aware submarine crews relaxed with a quick game of Strip Poker. Not to mention, it's happening ON THE BRIDGE of the sub.(!!) I'm guessing this was supposed to show us what a bunch of Authority-Snubbing Rebels the crew is... but in all honesty, we're talking multiple Court Martials here. (Especially since one participant, the Tough Afro-American Guy is the subs Executive Officer.(!!) Way to install confidence in your leadership potential, dude!) The kicker of this is the fact that the female player is...

Dr. Lisa Fincher, Fishlife Woman: Yes, she's another "consultant", on board the ship, here to study aquatic life. (And how exactly DO you "study" fish from inside a sealed submarine? Maybe she really acute hearing, or something?) But, hey.. if she's an expert on fish, that'll help later on in the film, right? Boy, lucky she happened to be on board, huh?

Sudden Accent Change: Casper must have been talking at this stage... his accent wandered all over Europe throughout the flick. He was vaugely English, in the most part, probably because ALL the best villians sport clipped British tones. (He did have a VERY Bulgarian-looking name in the end credits, though.) Dr. Lisaer throws in some exposition about the area she's been studying... a Bermuda Triangle-ish area called the...

Devils' Eye: Aah, an area where ships mysteriously vanish without trace! Could this be something to do with our Gargantuan Celephalapod? (I friggin' well hope so, otherwise this movie is going to be really boring.) Oddly, during this scene the Bleach-Blond Doctor of Piscatorialist Studies strats sleazing all over Roy. Accompnied by some...

Porno sax?: Kenny G's on board? ABANDON SHIP! We get to meet a few of the crew here... Including the Christian Slater-lite Nerdy New Fish. At least he didn't do a bad Jack Nicholsen impression.

Back to Bulgaria: As our ship full of Octo-Munchies sets sail, we return to Sofia. Here we meet Caspers cronies, a very small group of Terrorists. (What are they fighting for, you ask? Don't ask. I don't even think the scriptwriter knew...) They've hatched a bizarrely unlikely plan to rescue Casper, involving hijacking an entire cruise ship, then blowing it up afterwards to leave no witnesses. Let's dissect that lame plan, shall we? First off... Is a cruise line REALLY the best choice of vessel to intercept a submarine with? I fail to see how they're going to make the rendezous. Secondly, Casper was only captured a few days ago at best. Which means they had to secure not only tickets for the cruise, but several members of the group had to aquire JOBS on board. Yeah, right. And finally, cruise ships hold anywhere up to 2000 passengers. And they're taking over with maybe five or six terroists at best. Somehow, I don't think these guys are going to make a "Most Wanted" deck of cards anytime soon. During their briefing, they also look at some photos, taken by the...

Ultra-Satellite!: These "satellite" photos are supposedly of the Roosevelts arrival earlier on. As one shows the sub at sea in startling detail, and the other shows a side view of a sub in port, that's one HELL of a camera on that thing! (Must have been constructed by the same company that made those Atomic Binoculars.)

Cruise-Ship of DEATH!: As an after thought, I also noted the extreme lameness of the Stock Footage used to illustrate the cruise ship. Sign me up for THAT swinging disco!

Fish-Scaring Time: Meanwhile, the USS SpamInaCan crusies through the waters... while "something" chases a school of fish while making strange noises. (Imagine a humpback whale got his nuts caught in a wine-press... It wouldn't make that noise, but it's an amusing image, isn't it?) But we need more "characterisation", so let's head back inside...

Dr. Bimbo: Where Roy and Lisa are sharing a cabin, by the looks of it. How... cozy. She goes into full-on Uber-Skank mode, even stripping off for some PG-13 shower preperations two feet from him. I'm serious, they wrote a character as a marine biologist, then got her to act like an extra from Showgirls throughout most of the flick. They should have just named her "Dr. Mancandy" and been honest about it.) The (Not very) erotically-charged scene comes to a head as the sub hits something, practically throwing her into Roys lap. Sadly, like our protagonists in Raptor, the sexual chemistry between these two is minimal to say the least. (And buttock-cringingly forced to say the worst.)

Quick-Change Artist!: Mere seconds after the impact, the pair rush onto the bridge. Lisa is suddenly fully-clothed, which is a bit of a stretch. Although I was wondering why Captain Shaw was happy to have two civilians running around on the bridge. (A place rarely mentioned in the "Worlds Least-Cramped Areas" list.)

Casper Houdini: Casper has been locked up and hadcuffed since getting on board the sub. About now we see him using the Awesome Power of a Lethal Weapon rip-off to slip his cuffs. (He dislocates his thumb, then puts it back into place afterwards. Bet he throws a good curve-ball...) Back on the bridge, the sub appears to have suffered some major damage. Captain Shaw decides to send out a...

pair of Entrees: Yes, there's seamen in the water. (Don't read that line out loud, especially if you're at work.) Seamen Lucas and Lopez swim around for a bit, followed by a "probe". No-one seems to be operating this probe, but it's able to track both men and move in a fashion similar to... oh, let's say an underwater cameraman. So, let's see... Sub goes in the water. Lucas and Lopez go in the water. Octopus is in the water...

Exunt Lucas and Lopez: Fairwell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies.... Yes, it's our first CGI Monster Attack! (At last!) Of course, it's a fairly lame attack, with lots of screaming and flailing and very little Octo-action. (I guess they want to keep it off-screen for dramatatic purposes. Or just possibly for budgeteary reasons. Probably the latter, really.)

Escape Plan: After a little macho posturing, (According to my notes, anway. I can't remember by whom, or why.) Roy goes to check on Casper. Casper demands to be unchained or he'll off the hostage. Yep, masterful plan, buddy. Heck, if you get out of that room, you'll have the whole SUB to be trapped in... On the bridge, the XO and the New Fish spot "something" on the rader. (Okay, blow the dramatic suspense, I think we'll assume it's the titular Octopus, okay?) This segues into a...

Low-Budget Chase Scene: As the sub heads for the ocean floor, persued by the Octopus, Cpt. Shaw decides to take decisive action. (Glad someone's taking charge of this mess...)

Inconcistancies Ahoy!: This scene cracks me up... Shaw gets the crew to launch mines... but as he does so he spots the Octopus. How, you say? Because he's lookiing through the periscope at the time. I'm no military genius, but even _I_ know that you can't use the periscope below a certain depth. To add to the logic lapses, the mines cause a mammoth CGI explosion that looks capable of of putting the Toronto Skydome into orbit. Hands up who guessed the XO says "We GOT it!" right after? Yep, he does... and even claims it's disappeared off the scope. (The shot of the rader right after with the large, Octopus-shaped blip on it is therefore twice as amusing. Captain, your XO is sex-starved AND incompetant!)

Casper vs Roy!: Back in the hold, Roy grudgingly releases Capser, who's so Evil and Ruthless he instantly kills the hostage anyway. Roys still a gun-puss, so there's a rather cramped fist-fight instead. The Octopus makes his return here, basically saving Roys ass by attacking the ships just as Caspers about to whack our Hapless Hero.

Re-Use, Recycle, Reverse: Hey, the Octopus is attacking from the opposite side of the ship now! Boy, that technique of flipping an earlier shot of the radar was awesome, Mr. Eyres! Bravo!

20,000 Losers Under the Sea!: The still-barely glimpsed Octopus gives the sub an 8-Armed Bearhug of Death, resulting in...

Chaos, Confusion and CGI!: And the tough, battle-hardened crew... panics like a bunch of schoolgirls at a "Nightmare on Elm Street" Midnite Marathon. Except the stalwart XO, of course. He's too tough and Afro-American for that. The sub plummets to "Crush Depth"... oh, good! They'll all die and this movie will be over! Hooray!

Heavy Tipper: Meanwhile, we have to prove how evil and ruthless our Ill-Defined Terrorists are... and so we head back to the SS Plot Device to witness an innocent chambermaid getting shot to death. (After a quick "Here's your tip!" quip.) Good Lord, now the cabins on the Lido Deck will be all dusty and un-made! How ruthless and evil can you get?

Captain Moron vs Agent Ineffective!: Since talk is cheap and CGI is expensive, we get the big Face-off scene between Shaw and Roy. One drawn-out pissing contest later, I was suddenly distracted by the...

Roomy sub?: ...They're walking through. Floor-to-ceiling doors? I've been in a Russian-made sub at a museum... and it was a SHADE more compact than this one. (Actually, a LOT more... 14 bunks were built into the engine room, for instance.)

RGBS: RANDOM GRATUITOUS BRA SHOT! There probably WAS a valid reason for Dr. Lisa to strip to her smalls in this scene... but three days after the fact I can't for the life of me recall what it was. Oh that's right, to titillate the male viewers, how silly of me. He acts all evil and ruthless.. and British. Then Bulgarian. Then British again. Anyway, he finally drags her off to the...

Unattended ops station?: So the subs under attack from a Giant Octopus, and there's no-one in the radio room? McHales' Navy was better organised than these schmoes... Casper forces Lisa to release a probe, in order to pinpoint their location to the Cruise Liner. This is a plan? "You guys sail around in a giant cruise liner while I kidnap someone with the technical skill required to tell you where I am. Then I'll be in the sub, while you're on the surface and we can... uh, wait, let me think about this some more." And HOW exactly did they co-ordinate this mess? Come up with plans for every conceivable situation? "Okay, Plan#5, 675: What to Do in the Event of Casper Being Captured by Algerians and Transported Across the desert on Camelback. Yusef, you have to hire a biplane, while Bob and Tammy disguise themselves as travelling circus performers..."

Octo-wuss!: I'm SO glad I got to use that pun... It's the New Fish, who's dissolved into a blubbering mess on the bridge. PLEASE tell me this group of idiots aren't representative of the ACTUAL U.S Navy!

Spanked to Death!: Octo keeps on coming through all this, giving the sub a severe paddling with his tentacles. Everyone except the Bad-Ass XO panics and abandons the bridge. Well, like I asked of Casper earlier, where do they think they're running to? You're in a sealed metal tube 60 meters down, guys! Personally, I think this entire scene was simply a chance to see the...

Smack-talking XO!: Man, brothers in big Monster flicks ALWAYS have to do that "C'mon! Come get some! What are you waiting for?" scene. Even when, like here, it makes ZERO sense! Dude, the Octopus is OUTSIDE the ship! Why are you yelling at it? Besides which, at this stage of the film, no-one except Shaw has even SEEN the thing, thus making his outburst even LESS logical.

Mr. Gropey: Okay, who the hell was "Mr Gropey"? I probably had a great gag lined up here, but I can't remeber who (or what) I was referring too. This'll teach me to review films three days after taking the video back to the store. (And NO, I'm not going to hire it again. Ever.)

Mis-placed feminism: I think this was a continuation of "Mr Gropey", with Lisa complaining about someone grabbing her. This was meant to be humourous, I'm guessing. (Even though she's been Panting Horndog Gal all the way through the film so far.) The ship gets invaded by big CGI tentacles about now, trapping a bunch of sailors in a flooding compartment. Shaw sees them and... tries to open the hatch. Yeah, great Captain... let's flood the ENTIRE sub to rescue three men. Great strategy.

Struggle?: One of the tentacles bursts through a window and gets a grip on Shaw, resulting in some life-or-death struglling. Of course, this critter was able to wrap itsefl around a nuclear submarine a few minutes ago, so Shaw should be fishfood in ten seconds. As it is, he's able to hang on long enough for Lisa to shoot the tenacle with Roys gun. After Roy, you guessed it, can't even fire at a rubbery tentacle wrapped around a fellow human being. Y'know, I'm SURE the CIA has a weapons proficiency test for prospective agents. This guy wouldn't get a job emptying the Pentagons wastepaper baskets!

Exunt Mr. Panicky: Meanhile, the New Fish caps himself... after an agonising five minutes or so of watching him whimper to himself. Get bent, you annoying minor character!
+
Plot-by-probe. The Twitching Dead: Well, we're down to Roy, Lisa, Shaw and the XO on the bridge. Lisa suddenly gets all business-like and deciedes to do something scientific. (Analysing the probes' water samples, appernently. Where, and what with? I don't see no science lab on board...) The menfolk discover the rest of the crew, dead on their bunks. So either they all spontaneously died in their sleep, or the Octopus killed everyone, then posed them for a laugh. the shot they show of one of the "dead" crew is brilliant... Note the MASSIVE eye-lid twitch! (Retakes? What are those?)

Casper vs Roy II: By popular demand, (not) Casper and Roy meet up again for another Puss-fight. But, since he's got other people to help out, Roy wins this one. (Well, Shaw wins, Roy just helps out slightly.) With Casper under control again, it's time for the Dramatic Race against Time! It seems the nuclear reactor is going to explode for no adequately explained reason... in just TWENTY-FIVE minutes time! (I love how accurate they can be about an uncontrolled nuclear explosion...) Oh, the tension! They'll have to escape in the mini-sub! but first, here's Dr. Hotbody with some Scientific Findings!

Blame Antrax!: Man, Dr Lisa is good! In the space of five minutes she's realised the Octopus is a "fifth-generation mutant" caused by leaked anthrax that was being smuggled to Castro in the 60's. And she now knows its' got an iron deficiency and craves a certain protein to boot. And hey, guess what? She's got just that protein in a huge container of fish food! I've lost count of how many times I typed this but.... LAMMMMME!

Slow Flood, Fast Food: And so, our quasi-heros decide to use the fish food to distract Ol' Octo, then make a break for the sub. This will require them to traverse a flooded corridor, though. Oddly, the expected Alien Resurrection rip-off I was imagining kind of fizzles out... since the corridor is only flooded to waist-level. (Lisa takes the opportunity to strip to her underwear again... she's going to catch a chill.) Despite the fact they're basically wading to safety, they jump into the water at 30-second intervals, spacing themselves out in that "You KNOW someone's going to buy it here" line-up. One guess as to which of the cast brings up the rear...

The brother ALWAYS gets it!: Yep... bye, bye Sex-starved XO! Incidently, the CGI tentacles attack from the compartment they just vacated... which means the Octopus is now inside the NON-flooded section of the sub. (And with the size of the thing, that's got to be a pretty tight squeeze, even before the whole "Can't breathe out of water" thing...)

Dr One-Liner, Bad "Aliens" rip-off: This is really getting irritating... five seconds ago, Lisa is blubbering about her Studly XO getting offed... once she's in the mini-sub, she's firing opff wisecracks like there's no tommorrow. Paging Dr. Sybil... Anywaym after a "dramatic" struggle to get the docking mechanism unlocked, they re-create the Dropship escape from Aliens, even having the gall to practically re-create Jerry Goldsmiths music note-for-note in the process. We get a CGI Sub Explody so big it looks like it could shift the planet off it's axis, and we're done! Oh, crap... not yeah, huh? Oh, right... the cruise liner. Nearly forgot about that.

SS CGI: Hey, the ship turned into a computer-generated model! And it got bigger! Oh, wait... it's the same ship... look, there's the same same stock footage from before! (Either that or the Dorky Dancers REALLY like that disco! It's been like, 43 hours and they're STILL shaking their booties!) Shaw is about to hand Casper over to the liners captain, when in burst the evil (and ruthless) terrorists. This is where...

Roy echoes my sentiments: Yeah, I don't believe this either. Oh, look... a huge pair of tentacles off the port bow! Back on board, Casper has the Moronic Trio taken to an engine room to be shot. (Because shooting them on the bridge would have been rude. Then they couldn't see the bomb he's got set up. In fact, he doesn't even want to shoot them himself... I guess Roys condition is catching. He leaves them with Oscar, an evil and ruthless Henchman and wanders off as Ol' Squidgy commences his attack on the ship.

Eat the Rich!: I wrote that, figuring a bunch of retirees were about to be offed by the Octopus. Instead, he proves to be a large, squidgey Force For Good, picking off the terroists at will. (Even smashing through the front window of the liners bridge to snap the neck(!) of one woman.) As he chows down on his Terrorist-flavoured Sancks, we get to witness a contender for...

Dumb Henchman of the Year!: Yes, "Oscar" falls for the old "Watch the slutty science bimbo hoist her skirt a few inches" ruse. Schmuck. And so, we're into the thrilling conclusion of the flick... how can I tell? We've got another countdown Plot Device! This time, it's the bomb Casper left behind, ready to go off in just six minutes! Good, the sooner this mess is over, the better! Shaw hangs around to defuse it, while Roy and Lisa go after Casper. The Octopus is shaking the ship by now, causing little CGI people to fall overboard. It's lamer than it sounds, believe me. He also drags the ships sideways, ending up on about a 45 degree angle. Cut to Lisa and Roy running along a perfectly flat deck. Like I expected any less from this film. They catch up with Casper, and once again Roy has him in his sights. Ond once again, Roy turns into the biggest puss on three continents. Casper tries to make his escape in a convenient helicopter, before he meets his Ironic Doom at the hands... uhh, tentacles of some...

Computer-Generated suckage: Hey, they spliced in the scene from Aliens where Bishop gets the Queens' stinger through his chest! Only they made the effects all crappy and laughable! (To add insult to insult, the CGI tentacle proceeds to traverse the interior of Caspers body, while emerging from as many orfices as possible. Umm, sure.) But at least it's over, right? Nahhh.. now we have to dispose of the Octopus... and this is the funniest part of the entire flick! It starts off with some...

Badly-timed chit-chat!: ...As Shaw, Lisa and Roy stand holding a ticking time-bomb ("We've got 3 minutes and 50 seconds left!") and banter, make noble, self-sacrificing descions, swap spit for no reason (Roy and Lisa thankfully, not Roy and Shaw...) and trade wisecracks for about an hour and a half. Finally, Roy takes the bomb and heads for the mini-sub.

Super-slow seconds? Nuke the Fish!: "He's only got 2 minutes left!". How long's a minute on Mr Eyeres planet, I wonder? Roy drives the tiny sub at the Giant Critter, abandoning it with THREE seconds to spare. Well, he gets up out of his seat with three seconds left. I have no idea how he teleports out of the cramped little sub, but I;m sure there's a logical explanation. The scriptwriters' brain imploded, for instance. That could explain it. Anyway, one GARGANTUAN CGI Explody later, no more Octopus. And Roy surfaces like a wussed-out Esther Williams. I call shenanagins! Get my broom! Anway, at least this is very definately...

The End!: And we fade out to generic hip-hop. Yep, that fits the aquatic theme... The rolling credits contain more names ending with "...ov" than I've seen in a long time. Thanks a bunch, Bulgaria!

Skeeter Summary: Give me Bela vs the Limp Rubber Octopus of Doom anyday. This film was dead in the water from the get-go. A few unintentional laughs, but the irritating characters and abject stupidity of the plot sunk it. Okay, enough nautical puns for one night...