Shark Week: Super Shark

What do you get when you cross a Great White with Superman? Well obviously, you get Super Shark and as exciting as that cover art up there looks, the movie itself is far less.

For a film titled Super Shark, I expected it to be much dumber than it was, which may sound like a compliment but I assure you, it isn't. I've been watching shitty shark movies all week now. I can buy that sharks are attacking humans for no discernible incentive, sure. Now it's admirable for a film to aspire to be a bit more than that and try to go the extra mile in believability which Super Shark does. The main character, Kat, is a marine biologist who busies herself by antagonizing oil companies, the latest of which has recently and unwittingly awakened the dormant behemoth known as Super Shark which promptly destroyed the oil rig that disturbed it.

Being that the main character is a scientist of sorts, the writers found it necessary to give her all kinds of technical dialogue about chemicals in the water and where the shark could've come from. It's just all kinds of information that's not really needed. We're talking about a huge fucking shark that comes on land and kills beach-babes, this obviously isn't science and the movie embarrasses itself by trying to make sense of it's own mess.

And speaking of things that are unneeded, that's actually what I could say hurt this movie the most. So much of it was completely unneeded. For 40 minutes it takes us through an entire subplot following a pair bimbo lifeguards that argue over who should get to date the hot new guy only to have them both be killed instantly during their first encounter with Super Shark. Another scene includes a really long photo-shoot with two other girls who are even bigger bimbos than the lifeguards. The scene goes on for five straight minutes before Super Shark gets fed up and puts an end to that bullshit.

As you watch this film, you may wonder why no one ever seems to even attempt to run away from the shark. All anyone ever opts to do is stand there and scream about it. Obviously Super Shark is going to get you if you don't move, he's not a fucking T-Rex, he's goddamn Super Shark. One of the photo-shoot girls tries to be brave and fend off the colossal fossil with a nearby beach umbrella instead of being somewhat intelligent and taking her leave. She had plenty of room to run away and it's not like the monster is very fast on land, all it does is kind of drag itself along the beach.

But maybe I'm over-thinking it. I mean, we're talking about a "cost-efficient" shark flick here and I put emphasis on the cheap part. The special effects at times are laughably poor and at other times depressingly poor. That aside, the acting is alright for the most part but some of the throwaway characters are as obnoxious as they are indistinguishable. The cameras also seem to have been bought on a limited allowance. They're obviously not going to be Hollywood blockbuster status machines but it made the whole thing look pretty cheap and several scenes looked more like an impending porno than an impending shark battle.

But the duration of the movie is spent largely talking and trying to figure out if there even is a shark at all, which is stupid because we knew that right from the goddamn title. It tries to 'tide' us over (pun intended) by throwing in the occasional shark attack scene but it's just a tease and made me want to hurry up and get to the real action. The "real action" by the way? It consists of a brief fight between the shark and some retarded camel/tank thing which is pictured above. Speaking of which, check out this conversation between Kat and the some General.

"What is that thing?"
"Special prototype designed to handle the deserts in Afganistan."
"A walking tank?"
"Walking tank for a walking shark."
"That's brilliant."

What the hell sort of logic is that? So, anything that walks should be combatted by your weird walking tank? The shark makes mincemeat out of it and defeats it by tipping it over. Some secret weapon.

And I always love how the solution to a shark menace is to bomb the ever-loving shit out of it. Is that really how the government would react? Just send in the machine guns and bombs!

inb4: Political debate

But anyway, Super Shark, as awesome as the name implies, is actually pretty boring and more or less just a waste of time. It may still be fun to watch with friends but I wouldn't really recommend it.