Megalodon (2002) by Pat Corbitt

Director: Pat Corbitt

Year: 2002

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: Sharkzilla

Genre: Sharks

Plot:

Questioning a new story, a skeptical reporter heads to an experimental, deep-sea oil rig to investigate claims of its unsafe nature, but while working there, they find the rig has freed a prehistoric Megalodon into the world’s oceans and must race to stop the creature’s rampage.

Review:

On the whole, this is a pretty disappointing genre effort. Most of these are based on how much fun the rampaging shark is in the third act when it finally gets released, since that’s where all the action in this one is based. The first part, where the discovery is made following the search for the broken drill and finding the underwater world filled with other prehistoric creatures before finding the Megalodon itself, is a rather strong start to getting the creature out and into the world proper, as it gives a great reason for how to discover the shark and why it’s still alive. The sequences of it going around attacking the various submersible equipment or the various digging machinery offers up the kind of high-energy action that makes quite a likable time here, while the big action confrontation that takes place at the underwater station for its finale is a solid enough sequence in concept with some enjoyable factors in how the shark is attacked at the end to finally stop it, being all that keep this one going.

There are a lot of issues here that hold this down. The main issue here is that there’s just so little actually happening here that it’s hard to be invested in what’s going on. The plot itself is much to blame, spending far too much on the camera crew and the reporter getting a rundown of working on the rig and how it operates because of the series of safety regulations that have to be met since that’s the whole purpose of their trip to begin with, so there’s plenty here detailing the crew getting up close and personal with the owner and his team as they spell out how everything operates and runs before even getting to the accident that frees the shark. With so much of that taking up the first half here, there’s not much to drive up the immersion, as all we get is technical nonsense or generally cringe-inducing flirting, with every male onboard trying to hit on the reporter, creating the kind of bland and slow-going storyline that really makes it hard to get into this one.

On top of that, there are a lot of issues here with the main shark itself, even if some of the action scenes featured here are fun enough. The main detriment with this one is that there’s just not all that much threatening action for the shark to do, as it’s on-screen for so few moments that the only time it can do anything it just swims around doing nothing. The whole idea about it doing nothing and not being able to cause any kind of havoc or destruction is that it can’t accomplish much with its size and lack of screen time, meaning most of the attacks here involve it swallowing someone whole to the point of not having much in the way of gore or gruesome kills. Given that it’s also created through a slew of utterly atrocious and barely competent CGI that gives away every chance it gets to showcase how bad it all is, not just the shark’s presentation but all the submarine and digging equipment, which all come together to lower this one overall.

Overview: *.5/5

A watchable enough, if somewhat problematic, killer shark effort, there’s enough to like here that it’s not a complete waste, but it has some big drawbacks which are enough to keep it down overall. Those with an appreciation of this kind of genre fare or who are more forgiving of the flaws on display will want to give it a shot, while most others out there should heed extreme caution.