Tuesday, July 15, 2014

JURASSIC SHARK





A 2012 release.  Directed by Brett Kelly; starring Emanuelle Carriere, Christine Emes, Celine Filion, Angela Parent, Phil Dukarsky, Kevin Preece, Kyle Martellacci and A WAY COOL FLYING MEGALODON!!!   CAN I GET AN AMEN? 

PLOT SUMMARY:  Just the usual.  Teen journalism students are out to film some footage about illegal mining operations of some sort; what they fail to realize is that the operation has thawed out a frozen Megalodon which is now stalking them in their humble dinghy.  The other thing they don't realize is that the other humble dinghy in the water is filled with HIGHLY LETHAL ART THIEVES who are planning to mess up their filming even further.  WILL ANYONE SURVIVE?

CLIFFIE'S NOTES:                

>> This is unmistakably a product of Canada when you note all the French names in the listing of the cast & crew and the "oot and aboot" accents in the dialogue.  It all goes down in a quiet lake out in the middle of nowhere.  Know what that means?  Not only is this a flying Megalodon; not only did it survive tens of millions of years in a pocket of ice; but this is a Shark that quite enjoys fresh water.  GET THAT DESIGN SCHEMATIC DOWN TO FISH CENTRAL R&D RIGHT NOW.  Can it be that hard to develop a Bullshark 70 feet long? 

>> This operative of the Fish Conspiracy has the other key characteristic of any man-eating movie Shark: she can eat and eat and eat and never get full.  Of course these recruits are pretty much hors d'oeuvre size, and most of the snackettes are notably low on that all-important body fat that normally attracts a Shark to Seals rather than Naked Apes; but there are no Seals in this lake for the humans to compete with, and there would be NO MOVIE AT ALL without a Shark bottomlessly hungry for nubile teenaged girls and their bodybuilding goon boyfriends.

>> I really suspect that this Shark is a ghost.  That's even aside from the fact that she survived half a billion years in a ball of ice under a mountain.  I mean, how does she defy the laws of physics like that?  Here's an immense Shark cruising a lakelet small enough to make it challenging for a Trout to live there, and she flips and turns and hurtles out of the water like a Polaris missile WITHOUT DISTURBING THE SURFACE.   Then she gets up to takeoff speed without anyone noticing -- even though the water is shallow enough for you to see to the bottom -- and plucks recruits off the sand WITHOUT SPILLING A DROP OF BLOOD.  This kind of phenomenon happens again and again as the movie progresses.  Just WATCH THE MOVIE AND SEE WHAT I MEAN.

>> A real treat that came with this story was the way the lead journalism student, in a slick attempt to curry favor with the kidnappers, informs them about how they can defeat the Shark by using dynamite in the water.  What happens next would make even Buster Keaton scratch his head in wonderment.  Musclebound Guy #2 lights a stick of dynamite, throws it -- and the Shark swims away.  WITH NO EXPLOSION.  The dynamite just sorts of sinks and the Shark flees in terror.  How exactly does that work?  I never knew a Shark that responded to psychological tactics.  Or a bluff. 

>> I love the way the woodchipper editing leaves me with the impression that a lot of really interesting things happened outside the limits of the camera shot.  Like the scientist found flaked out on the sand, his lab coat covered in blood.  What happened there?  Was he approached by the Megalodon for possible recruitment?  Did he catch the spray of blood as someone next to him was recruited?  Or did I just blink at the wrong moment and miss a great FLYING SHARK scene?

>> What was the deal with that painting at the bottom of the lake?  After a day of capsized boats, lousy swimmers groping on the bottom and the flinging of several sticks of lit dynamite -- not to mention that this is a priceless antique submerged in muddy water -- IS IT REALLY WORTH CONTINUING TO LOOK FOR THE STOLEN PAINTING?  The resale value drops every couple of minutes, I assume.

>> And are these convincing art thieves?  No.  No, they are not.

>> Notice the cover art from the film box posted at the head of this blog entry.  Great stuff, eh?  Alas, it never happened in the movie.  The Shark is about a fifth of the size shown.  She can fly, though!!!

Watch this one; you'll really die laughing.

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