Almighty Thor (2011)

Hello everybody, I'm back! Sorry for the delay in posting--I started a new job recently and didn't have the strength to sit through b-movies. We shall start off the summer with a Syfy offering--Almighty Thor! 

Syfy had already made Thor, Hammer of the Gods, so I was curious to see how this second Thor would compare. Final verdict: Almighty Thor stinks way more than Thor, Hammer of the Gods. Read on...

Plot Summary

The evil Loki (Richard Grieco) wants the Hammer of Invincibility so he can take over Asgard, which is somehow connected to modern-day LA. Odin (Kevin Nash) hides the hammer in the World Tree's heart. His son Thor (Cody Deal) must retrieve the hammer before Loki can get his black-gloved hands on it. A Valkyrie named Jarnsaxa (Patricia Velasquez, in an inspired bit of bad casting) helps fend off Loki's minions while Thor searches for the hammer. Yes, it's true--Thor must go to LA to find the right portal into the World Tree's heart. Sadly, the script offered no rationale for putting the portal in LA. I would have really, really liked to hear that explanation.

Nutrition Facts

Vitamin B-Acting: 100%

All three leads--Thor, Loki and Jarnsaxa--contributed to the high rating in their own unique ways. 

Cody Deal cannot act, though he is marginally more believable in the role of Thor than Zachary Ty Bryan was, just based on looks alone. Deal's acting consists of two settings: 1) pouty teenage boy, and 2) slack-jawed, bored teenage boy. Though Deal is actually in his 20s, he captured teenage ennui and the slouched posture perfectly. So many times Thor looked as if he would rather be listening to his iPod than to Jarnsaxa's nagging.



Richard Grieco's Loki is a combination of a pasty-white Ben Stiller and an evil Luke Skywalker with the requisite overacting and spiky black armor. 

"Come to the Dark Side!"

Plus, he carries around a fake femur with a magic crystal attached, called "The Bone of Urrl."

Ah, the dirty jokes inspired by that bone...

Now we come to Patricia Velasquez. It is odd to see a Venezuelan play a Valkyrie, but her thick Spanish accent is what made her casting really jarring. Normally my hearing impairment makes it harder to detect accents, but even I couldn't miss Velasquez's accent. Oh, and she can't act either. 

"Kill the WABBIT!"

Vitamin B-SFX: 85%

The special effects follow the classically cheap, fake Syfy template--explosions and flames obviously superimposed on the scene, the "blue/green=good, red=evil" color scheme, and superimposed monsters with stiff-legged, jerky movements.

But what sets Almighty Thor apart from many other Syfy Original Movies are the "artsy" touches. Two of the best examples: 

1) Thor fights a knight in slow-motion. Occasionally the scene switches to choppy slow-mo, as opposed to regular slo-mo. Thor defeats the knight, and rain falls in poetic slow-mo as he savors his victory. Enough slow-mo already!  

High Art Example #1

2) When Odin and Thor talk to the Norns (kind of like the Scandinavian Fates), the Norns are taped in sepia tones with wobbly, blurred camera shots. If the crew was trying to make the Norns look high, they certainly succeeded. 

High Art Example #2

Vitamin Fun: 40%

The movie drags plenty, but the level of bad acting and the size of the plot holes should help hecklers stay awake.

Sugar: 0.1%

The romance between Thor and Jarnsaxa comes out of nowhere about 3/4 of the way into the movie, and the "it's in the script" feeling is hilariously overpowering. Jarnsaxa and Thor do not make a convincing couple.

Plot Fiber: 0%

It would be easier to just list some of the most glaring plot/continuity holes, so here we go:

1) Thor's brother, Baldir, manages to pull out a double-headed pike that pierced his aorta. Very impressive, considering that sort of injury kills within a minute or two at the most.

2) As Odin lays dying from a wound Loki inflicted, he tells Thor where to find the Hammer. Why doesn't Loki just eavesdrop instead of making a big production out of following Thor around LA?

3) Speaking of dying, if Loki was never "alive" and therefore cannot die, why isn't the same true for Odin?

4) The biggest plot hole of all--the LA element. When Jarnsaxa whisks Thor to LA, the sudden switch from medieval-ish Asgard to the smog-wreathed skyscrapers of LA has no effect on Thor. He remains as bored as ever, even when he's exposed to novelties like guns. Shouldn't he at least be choking on the smog? 

From this...

...to this. No problem!

 

Mega Python vs. Gatoroid

Well, if your goal in life was to watch two ex-idols duke it out in skimpy, wet dresses, this is the flick for you.

For the rest of us who don’t care so much about the Tiffany/Debbie schtick, there are fabulously fake giant gators and pythons, and a plot full of WTFery.

Plot Summary

Nikki Riley (Debbie Gibson), who is supposedly a herpetologist, “rescues” snakes from illegal breeders and releases them into the Everglades. The pythons grow to B-movie-monster size and start eating all the gators. Ranger Terry O’Hara (Tiffany) pumps dead chickens full of steroids and feeds them to the gators, so they will also grow to certified B-movie-monster size and eat the pythons. Then it’s pythons vs. gators vs. humans! Oh, and Nikki and Terry catfight a lot. 

Nutrition Facts

Vitamin B-Acting: 90%

Tiffany and Debbie don’t hold back in their manufactured onscreen rivalry. Their sneers, pouts and snarls convey a sensitivity to the nuances of human emotion that is impossible for anybody other than Syfy Original Movie veterans to replicate. Bravo, Tiffany and Debbie! 

An accurate portrayal of rangers' uniforms

 

A. Martinez, in the role of Native American herpetologist Diego Ortiz, does a perfect imitation of a stone statue throughout the movie. His calmness stuns the viewer, particularly while he watches his fellow human beings disappear down the maws of giant snakes.

I’d also like to give a shout-out to Kathryn Joosten, who played Angie the tough old lady ranger. I was quite sorry to see Angie die—but clearly she had to be punished for revealing any vestige of common sense.

Former Monkee Mickey Dolenz also makes a cameo in the flick. I must say, I could really get into watching B-movie monsters taking a bite out of these ex-idols.

Vitamin B-SFX: 90%

The gators, in particular, look faker and faker as the movie goes on. By the movie’s end, they were hardly recognizable as gators in certain scenes. I think these gators may well take the prize as the worst gator SFX in a Syfy Original Movie. That’s saying a lot, considering there are at least a dozen other gator-related Syfy Original Movies…

Hey, the pythons look fake too—don’t get me wrong. But these pythons are better done than the gators, and the pythons in this movie are on par with the SFX snakes from other Syfy Original Movies.

Darn, I really have spent too much of my life watching Syfy Original Movies.

Anyway, there’s a fun bit in the movie when the beasties invade Miami (looks more like a Hollywood backlot to me). A snake attacks a blimp with the Asylum logo on it—Asylum, of course, is the studio that made the movie. 

I also enjoyed the moment when a commuter train goes right into a snake’s gullet. After riding the Washington DC Metro regularly for two years, I wouldn’t be so surprised if that started happening on the Red Line.

Vitamin Fun: 80%

I’d say the second half is the most enjoyable, because that’s when Nikki and Terry really go at each other’s throats, and the SFX degrades steadily. But the plot WTFery (the details will come soon) remains consistent throughout the film.

Sugar: 0%

You know it’s a true, 100% certified Syfy Original Movie when even the death scenes of important characters have no emotional impact whatsoever. (No, I’m not saying who dies.) 

NOO! Not the DOG!

Plot Fiber: 0%

First, no herpetologist in his/her right mind would ever think that releasing more pythons into the Florida wilderness was “right” or “natural,” as Nikki loudly insists during the entire movie. I have nothing against snakes—after all, I actually agreed to let my college roommate keep a pet snake in our dorm room. Florida has such a serious problem with snakes in the Everglades, though, that it really does flout reason to have a herpetologist actively releasing more snakes into the wild. (I also watch too much “Animal Cops: Miami.”) The python-gator problem is real—for more background, take a look here. (Warning—not for the squeamish)

It also makes zero sense that an Everglades ranger would automatically think that fighting giant snakes with giant gators was the way to go. Of course, this movie’s entire raison d’etre is for Tiffany and Debbie to constantly fight onscreen, and logic is not conducive to a good fight. 

Supplements

Since the movie focuses so much on the faux Tiffany-Debbie rivalry, the pseudoscience and political pills don’t have any real effect on the plot. This movie regurgitates the pseudoscience of Mega Piranha, when pseudoscience does appear at all.

Thor, Hammer of the Gods

 

Longhouse Improvement Season 3, Episode 11

15-year-old Thor (Zachary Ty Bryan) wants to impress a shieldmaiden who won't give him the time of day. He enlists the help of younger brothers Loki (Jonathan Taylor Thomas) and Baldur (Taran Noah Smith) in forging a larger hammer with more bling. But parents Odin (Tim Allen) and Freya (Patricia Richardson) disapprove of Thor's love interest. Can the boys forge the hammer without the parents finding out, or burning the longhouse to the ground? 

Sadly, the real Thor, Hammer of the Gods is not nearly as interesting as the fake synopsis above. The movie's major claim to fame consists of featuring the baby-faced Zachary Ty Bryan in the title role. Yes, seriously, Brad from "Home Improvement" plays Thor.

The Real Plot Summary

Baldur and Thor (mortal men, not the gods) lead their band to a mysterious land at the ends of the earth. The two brothers claim the land as their new kingdom, but it quickly becomes clear that something is very wrong. Wolfmen start hunting the Vikings. At the same time, Thor begins to see cheesy CGI visions of his namesake. Thor discovers that Loki is behind the nefarious happenings, and that only by finding the Hammer of the Gods (HOG) can he defeat Loki.

Nutrition Facts

Vitamin B-Acting: 70%

Zachary Ty Bryan's Thor comes off as a Southern California dude who got very lost while paddling on his surfboard. The baby face doesn't exactly lend credence to Thor's toughness, either.
 

The Vikings were known for their liberal use of hair gel, too.

Most of the B-acting credit has to go to Daz Crawford, who plays Ulfrich, the movie's baddie. He's the kind of villain you identify instantly, due to the following characteristics:

1) He has a huge scar, and it's not a "cosmetic cute" scar.
2) He's bald. In an evil way.
3) He always scowls and sneers and never smiles, unless it's an evil smile. 

 

Crawford easily shows the most life in an otherwise listless cast. I almost wanted to root for him because the others were so deathly boring.

Vitamin B-SFX: 70%

The opening credits are set against drawings of Thor and other Norse-ish scenes. You can judge the art quality for yourself here:

The Thor vision scenes contain painfully obvious CGI, often to hilarious effect. If you ever watch this movie for some nutty reason, look out for the sea beast scene. That's the best example of cheesy CGI.

The camera never lingers long on the wolfmen, for an obvious reason--to hide the fakeness of the costumes. The wolfmen basically consist of regular guys wearing wolf heads.

By contrast, we get a good chunk of time to admire the Fenris wolf (Loki in disguise). This allows us to see the obvious puppetry, and how badly synchronized its speech and mouth movements are.

Vitamin Fun: 20%

This is a boring, boring movie. At least 75% of the "action" onscreen consists of marching, waiting for an attack, or introspective moments.

Sugar: 5%

Ulfrich's girlfriend really loves Zach--I mean, Thor. I actually felt kind of sorry for Ulfrich at this point. His gal leaves him for Brad from Home Improvement. How sad is that?

Plot Fiber: 40%

The basic plot is fine by mythology standards, though the pacing severely cripples the story. But the casting of Zachary Ty Bryan as Thor is what really destroyed whatever credibility this movie had.

"I have a big, shiny hammer..."

Triassic Attack

 
What better than to start the month of December with a movie featuring skeletal dinos running amok? Nothing more Christmassy than that! 

Plot Summary 

In Mill City, Stayton University is about to open a huge new research compound. Unfortunately for the locals, building the compound means tearing down things like the Cowichan Indian Museum, run by Dakota (Raul Trujillo). Dakota calls upon the Great Spirit to teach the university a thing or two, but the Spirit takes up residence in the skeletons of a T-Rex, a raptor (the movie-sized kind), and a pteranodon. The dinos escape and start preying on the citizens of Mill Lake. The town sheriff, Jake (Steven Brand), must team up with his estranged wife Emma (Kirsty Mitchell) to save his daughter and the town from the rampaging skeletons.

Vitamin B-Acting: 30%

Everybody puts in average acting--nothing special in the way of hamminess or a spectacular lack of acting. Except for Lincoln Frager, who plays up all the negative frat stereotypes as much as he can.

Come to think of it, Wyatt (Gabriel Womack) injected a nice big dose of idiosyncrasy into the story. It also doesn't hurt that Wyatt is the owner of the movie's token dog, an adorable pug. (Of course the pug lives.) Anyway, Wyatt gives other characters helpful advice, like telling them to roll in cow poop because the dinos hate the smell.

But women LOVE L'Eau de Merde.

 
Vitamin B-SFX: 100% 

GLOWING RED EYES!!!

 

They snarl and roar despite a distinct lack of vocal chords, lungs or anything else besides bone. Whenever the skeletons get blown apart, they magically reform. The crowning moment occurs when the T-Rex and pteranodon skeletons recombine to form a Ptyrannodon Rex. A flying T-Rex--most awesome, Syfy!

Hey, they have bad breath too!

Vitamin Fun: 70%

The dinos are great fun, but as usual for Syfy movies, the dino-less scenes tend to drag. I found Frat Boy's death quite gratifying, but sadly the movie's version of the Evil Businessman (a university president) gets redeemed instead of eaten. Ptyrannodon Rex must not have gotten the memo from the Great Spirit to kill ALL the sexist jerks. Bad P-Rex! Bad!

Sugar: 40%

Will Jake and Emma rediscover their love for each other? Will Jake make peace with his brother Dakota? Can the quirky locals of Mill City and the university learn to coexist in a mutually beneficial way? In other words, will Mill City's tourist traps survive?

Plot Fiber: 0%

Really, what other rating can I give this movie's Plot Fiber? I did have fun remembering how I used to imagine the skeletons at the Field Museum coming to life when I was a kid, though. Unfortunately, it just doesn't happen even if a bunch of Indian artifacts and 100,000 volts of electricity are at hand.

 
Pseudoscience Pill--NA

Political Pill: 70%

Dakota sums up this movie's political tensions perfectly in this line:

"If you side with the elite, you side with EVIL!"

"Elite" covers all the various, stereotyped political and social threads that make an appearance--Indians vs. whites, old ways vs. new ways and locals vs. big business. I know it's a university and not a big business like Wal-Mart, but honestly, the movie treats it exactly the same as it would an evil oil company or a greedy biotech company.

Maneater

The wild ‘n’ crazy Gary Busey. A killer tiger. A little boy who insists the tiger is “misunderstood.” Sounds like a promising Syfy movie, no? If only it hadn’t been so lifeless…the possibilities were endless!

Plot Summary

A truck overturns on a rural road in “Taruga County.” (The movie was filmed in Winnipeg, but I got the distinct sense that it was supposed to be a rural Southern town, like in North Carolina.) A tiger escapes, and starts snacking on the unsuspecting townspeople. Can Sheriff Grady Barnes (Busey) stop the “misunderstood” tiger?

Nutrition Facts

Vitamin B-Acting: 80%

Gary Busey turns in a most intriguing performance. His “Saawthun” accent is a hoot, as are his ill-fitting tweed jackets. He swings back and forth between "bemused hamminess" and "zoned out." As long as you don’t blink, you’ll catch the moments when his acting talent comes out.

As for the rest of the cast, you can expect static, dull acting. Except for the mayor, who’s a total caricature of the Jaws mayor. 

Vitamin B-SFX: 10%

A few dismembered limbs and an explosion or two, but really nothing of note in B-movie terms.

The closest the movie comes to “cinematic art” occurs in the dream sequences involving the boy, Roy, and the tiger. You guessed it—they’re shot in soft, gauzy light with distorted camera angles. Sadly, we don’t witness the tiger actually talking to the boy, but it is tempting to envision them as Calvin and Hobbes.

"I haven't seen Susie Derkins lately..."

Vitamin Fun: 40%

The movie starts out strong—I mean, strong in the B-movie way, with lots of cheesiness. Then it turns into the most boring movie in the second half, with a flabby ending. Darn it, little Roy doesn’t even have a serious face-off with Hobbes in which he bellows to the heavens, “How could you betray me, Hobbes? I loved you! I defended you when everybody said you were a mindless killer!”

Seriously, though, the movie’s second half gets too concerned with exploring the characters’ tragic backstories and philosophizing about man’s relationship with nature. Oh, Hobbes kills a few people, but he’s hardly the main concern of the script. This script is heavy on sugar, which brings us to the next category…

Sugar: 50%

This one piles on the tragic backstories with a big red shovel:

1) Roy lives with a super-religious mother who homeschools him using the Bible. As a result, he’s lonely (except for Hobbes).

2) Grady and his wife can’t have children. Guess who they end up adopting when Hobbes eats the super-religious mother?

YUMMEE

3) We also meet Colonel James Livingston Graham, a British hunter who walked straight off a Masterpiece Theater production set in colonial Africa. Or India, as the case is with Graham. Anyway, once upon a time, while hunting a maneating tiger in India, Graham was sleeping in a hut with his family. The tiger crept inside and made off with his 12-year-old son. Graham was accused of messing up the hunt, and his reputation sullied. Will hunting Hobbes heal Graham’s inner wounds?

Plot Fiber: 70%

From what I’ve read of maneating tigers, it’s not at all implausible that Hobbes could evade his hunters and manage to kill a lot of people.  Of course, as per the laws of Syfy, the characters do dumb stuff like split themselves up while hunting for Hobbes. But still, Hobbes doesn’t possess any special powers—he’s not a genetically altered creature or the hideous result of a nuclear bomb. He does what tigers do best: hunt.

The movie also did a pretty good job of depicting the media and public frenzy that would go with the discovery of a maneater on the loose. (Though the websites that appear are very quaint by today’s standards.)

Graham, on the other hand…I want to know how his time travel from 1890s Africa worked. Did he have a DeLorean? Or did he arrive via a Jumanji board?

Monsterwolf

Okay, finally got around to posting a "31 Days of Halloween" movie from Syfy!
 

Angry spirit wolf, evil oil company, rednecks—now there’s a winning combo for a Syfy Original Movie! The cast has good chemistry, the story actually sort of makes sense, and the villains die gratifyingly violent deaths. Monsterwolf is not a rollicking pile of looniness like Mega Piranha, but it’s still a good romp.

Plot Summary

During a secret, illegal drilling operation, an oil company called Holter Ex accidentally releases a vengeful Native American spirit wolf in Crowley, Louisiana. (Evil oil company in Louisiana? Gee, I wonder which major event inspired this movie?) The wolf goes after everybody associated with Holter Ex, and only the last living member of the Atakapa tribe can stop the wolf’s rampage. 

Nutrition Facts

Vitamin B-Acting: 40%

All of the B-acting comes from the villain, Holter Ex CEO Mr. Stark (played by Robert Picardo, who was the doctor on “Star Trek: Voyager”). Picardo lays on the ham, which suits his role as the uberheartless CEO perfectly. Buy up neighborhood land? Done! Blow up the Native American artifacts so he can continue drilling unhindered? You bet! Shoot the Choctaw chief to stop a lawsuit against Holter Ex? Naturally! 

The one thing that terrifies Stark--the MEDIA!

The other actors do their job, and not much more. Jason London has a major role as Yale, the female lead’s romantic interest—I note this only because his brother Jeremy has appeared in many fine, fine Syfy movies. More Londons can only mean good things for Syfy Original Movie fans.

Vitamin B-SFX: 30%

The wolf is a fairly competent SFX by Syfy standards, but it’s still clearly fake, and the huge teeth will provoke some giggles.

Unusually, the movie contains animated sequences. This occurs while Chief Turner of the Choctaws relates the sad tale of Kachinawea, aka “Monsterwolf.” (The captions had trouble settling upon the right spelling—KAchinawea? KUchinawea?) The animation, while far below Disney or Pixar’s level, was decent for the kind of movie it appeared in. 

Tremble, Tony Hayward!

Vitamin Fun: 80%

The story rolls along well, the acting is decent and hammy in all the right places. For a bonus, Yale and Maria (the female lead) are accompanied by Yale’s perpetually high/drunk redneck best friend, Chase. Frankly, Chase has no real reason to be in the story at all, except to offer his special brand of high/drunk advice.

Oh, have I mentioned the squad of crack assassins that Stark hires to kill Chief Turner and Kachinawea? The squad’s leader is a man who’s like a cross between Samuel L. Jackson and Ving Rhames from “Con Air.” The leader dies a spectacularly fiery death by Kachinawea’s paw, of course.

Sugar: 30%

There are two parts to the sugar in this movie. First, Maria herself. She left her tiny town to go to law school in New York. She starts the movie working for Stark, but then rediscovers her soul mate in Yale and realizes how far she was straying from the path of happiness and inner fulfillment.

Secondly, Maria’s mother died in a car accident when she was 16…and Maria was driving the car. The accident happened because Maria’s mother had revealed that…MARIA WAS ADOPTED! Are you crying yet? (Guess who turns out to be the last living Atakapa, and the only person who can stop Kachinawea?)

Plot Fiber: 75%

Surprisingly strong logic by Syfy movie standards. Kachinawea’s backstory makes sense in the context of the long history of troubled Native American-whites relationships. Otherwise, the plot follows Jaws pretty closely: monster pops up, people don’t believe it at first, and then the bodies pile up and they believe.

Of course, not every moment in the movie makes sense—there’s a few times when Kachinawea goes after people who shouldn’t be on his hit list. But hey, the more carnage in a Syfy movie, the better, right? Compared with the gaping plot holes I’ve witnessed in other Syfy movies, I’m inclined to forgive the relatively small plot holes in Monsterwolf.

Supplements

Pseudoscience Pill: N/A

Political Pill: 100%

Big oil? Check.

Native Americans vs. greedy white capitalists? Check.
 

However, the way the movie is written, these political undercurrents are quite gratifying. Kachinawea inflicts bloody vengeance upon Big Oil, and also gets a good dig into evil white men on the Choctaws’ behalf. You’re more likely to enjoy this Political Pill rather than choke on it.

Likelihood of choking: 10%

October Plans

Hello, dear readers! I've got a few special plans for this month:  

1) SATANIC SUNDAYS 

It's October--I have to work in a Halloween-type movie, right? So this month, I'll watch and post reviews on every movie in "The Omen" series. These posts will go up every Sunday, hence "Satanic Sundays." Tomorrow will be the original "Omen," followed by its three increasingly sucky sequels. I will also review the remake of "The Omen" on Halloween.

2) THE 31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN 

This is prime, prime Syfy Original movie season. Every year Syfy Channel has a "31 Days of Halloween" movie fest. They basically use it as an excuse to play every single movie they have. Unfortunately, it won't be possible for me to review a movie for every day in October, but I will post reviews on a few choice movies this month. (No, I'm not going to spoil the surprise by telling you what I plan to review.)

Sharktopus

Another Roger Corman production with an awesome monster along the lines of Mega Piranha! This one doesn’t have the same amount of life in it as Mega Piranha, but still well worth watching for the sharktopus alone.  

Summary

Sands (Eric Roberts) and his daughter Nicole have created a half-shark, half-octupus creature as a military weapon. Unfortunately, Sharktopus’ wiring goes haywire, and the creature goes on a killing spree along the Puerto Vallarta shoreline. Can Andy, who used to work for Sands, and Nicole stop Sharktopus from killing all the bikini-clad lovelies?

Nutrition Facts  
Vitamin B-Acting: 50%

Most of the acting from the leads is tongue-in-cheek—the actors are clearly in on the joke. Eric Roberts’ cynical, relaxed demeanor served the movie well—the character of Sands is the sort who believes that “civilian deaths are a tragedy, but it’s the price of greatness.” Roberts is the kind of actor I always enjoy watching, even in dorky movies like Best of the Best. (BTW, when I say most of the acting is “tongue-in-cheek, I don’t mean that it’s necessarily GOOD acting. The other actors sink admirably to the usual substellar level of Syfy acting.)

The other actor who obviously enjoyed her role was Liv Boughn, who played the reporter Stacy Everheart. And I’d bet $100 that the scriptwriters purposely gave the character a porny name.

Vitamin B-SFX: 95%

The sharktopus is oh so gloriously fake. Here’s a list of the awesome things it does: 

  
--It eats a few of its victims the way we eat hotdogs.

--It snaps a woman off a bungee line, and a man off a jungle trapeze line.

--It climbs onto various beaches and buildings on the shore. We also get to see it crawl around on land.

--It takes down a yacht.

--It stabs (and sometimes beheads) its victims with steel-tipped tentacles.

I should add that its gills are adorned with spikes, and that the sharktopus honors the b-movie law requiring all sharks to growl underwater.

Vitamin Fun: 65%

The movie starts off strong, then about 35 minutes in there’s a long stretch when it drags, and then it picks up again about 20 minutes away from the end. During that slow stretch Eric Roberts stays offscreen most of the time, and there isn’t as much Sharktopus action—the best Sharktopus bits come in the first and last parts of the movie.

Even so, Asylum Films and Syfy have figured out that a good monster ups the fun in Syfy Original Movies considerably. Sharktopus is undeniably the star of the show, which makes this movie one of the more fun Syfy offerings.

Sugar: 30%

There’s quite a bit of forced romantic tension between Nicole and Andy—another reason I kicked down the Vitamin Fun rating a few notches. Romance gets tedious quickly in Syfy movies, at least for me.

Also, the plot features father-daughter tension between Sands and Nicole. Nicole gets angry at Sands for leading her into an unethical project, despite the fact that she pretty much gave up her life to become a top-level scientist to please him. But all is forgiven at the end, when Sands die after Sharktopus slits his throat with a steel-tipped tentacle. (You go, Sharktopus!)

Plot Fiber: 30%
 
The plot’s pretty straightforward, so not as many jaw-dropping plot twists as in other Syfy flicks. Still, there are some plot elements that bear further scrutiny:

1) The whole idea of Sharktopus in the first place. Just how effective a military weapon can it be if you can just kill it with one well-placed missile?

2) Why do Nicole and Sands chase Sharktopus in a small, open-air boat with so few weapons? I get they have to keep their pursuit of Sharktopus a secret, but still, they could have gone out in a larger boat without attracting undue attention. 

  
3) Speaking of Sands, he keeps insisting that Sharktopus “planned this ambush” and that he’s “highly intelligent.” To me this sounded a lot like the “psychic” shark from Jaws: The Revenge.

4) Like every other seabeast b-movie, the sharktopus prefers resort areas with lots of bikini babes and lusty young men.

5) A minor character named Pez Kingsberry gets one glimpse of the sharktopus early in the movie, and instantly turns into a raging alcoholic overnight. (Pez serves as Stacy Everheart’s source for the sharktopus story.) Why not just flee inland? (And is "Pez Kingsberry" another porny name?)

Supplements:

Pseudoscience Pill: 20%

The movie doesn’t go into the details of Sharktopus’ genetic engineering, which is kind of a shame because that really had potential for loopy pseudoscience. The most we get is that Roberts had the team tweak Sharktopus’ serotonin levels to make him more aggressive.

But the bit that raised my eyebrows concerns Sharktopus’ remote control unit. At the beginning of the film, Sharktopus sports a metal contraption on his head by which Nicole transmits electric signals that control his neural impulses. I seriously question how effective that would be in real life, though I know that implantable devices exist for controlling certain types of epilepsy.

The truly implausible part of the remote control unit is the fail-safe device though. The kill switch also depends on a remote connection, so once Sharktopus’ contraption gets broken, there’s no way to kill him! UNLESS…the characters shoot an “interface dart” that will magically avoid breaking the implanted device in Sharktopus’ head and re-establish the remote connection to the kill switch. 

Likelihood of choking: 40%

Political Pill: 5%
Lip service is paid to the ethical questions behind genetic engineering, but Sharktopus usually interrupts the characters’ rants before they get too long. 

Likelihood of choking: 0%

PS—Do a Google search and check out all the awesome tributes to Sharktopus imaginative fans have come up with. These two are my favorites: 

Origami Sharktopus!

 

OOH--a cuddly Sharktopus!

 

Megafault

I saw a commercial for this movie a few weeks ago and decided to see it after seeing the word “mega” in its title. Little did I know that it had more than one established actor, well above the average for a Syfy Original Movie. The movie stars the recently departed Brittany Murphy, of Clueless fame, Eriq LaSalle from “ER” (back when it was a good show), and Bruce Davison, better known as Senator Kelly from the X-Men movies. And as a bonus, Paul Logan, AKA Jason from Mega Piranha! (Syfy movies frequently cross-pollinate, but this was kind of ridiculous. Still, seeing Jason again was one of the few bright spots for me during Megafault.)

Despite the above-average cast, Megafault ranks among the stupidest Syfy movies I’ve ever seen. I hesitate to declare it THE stupidest of them all, because the field is really competitive, but it comes darn close. Without further ado, let’s take a closer look at the movie.

Plot Summary

A hitherto unknown “deep fault” opens up in West Virginia, and travels westward through the country. Can Dr. Amy Lane (Brittany Murphy) and demo man Boomer (Eriq LaSalle) find a way to stop Megafault from destroying the country? (BTW, the characters actually call the earthquake “Megafault” during the movie—it’s not just the movie title!)

Nutrition Facts

Vitamin B-Acting: 80%

The rating would have been higher had anybody shown an ounce of life and put some ham into their acting. Frankly, the sheer lack of emotion is quite amazing—most of the time characters react to events like zombies. Megafault definitely comes across as a “we needed the money to pay our bills” sort of movie.

Vitamin B-SFX: 90%

Oh, this is a gold mine of bad SFX. Here were my favorite moments:

1) The plumes of black smoke over Washington, DC. Notice how they’re not moving at all? Normally smoke blows with the wind. These smoke plumes just hang in the air as if they’d been sprayed with 10 pounds of Aquanet. On a similar note, one smoke plume that actually moves was clearly put on a motion cycle—if you watch carefully, the smoke moves for one cycle, then repeats the exact same motions over and over again.

2) The giant cracks in the earth are clearly fake. At one point, when watching the fault make its way to Louisville, KY, it looked like someone had used the Smudge function on Adobe Photoshop to make the fault. You could see the smudging as the fault moved!

3) Laser-guided fault lines. The fault lines would ALWAYS pursue characters. Earthquakes are vindictive creatures, y’know. 

4) Small towns in Wyoming melting away and people randomly bursting into flames when the Yellowstone volcano gets reactivated. Now this is a classic Syfy SFX moment!

Then of course there’s the charming last shot, which is an aerial shot of the US with a huge gash from West Virginia to Arizona.

Vitamin Fun: 30%

Despite the high ratings I’ve given so far, this is a surprisingly dull movie. It’s the sort of movie in which every scene gets stretched out for a few too many seconds. We spend far more time watching Amy Lane mope and not doing her job than watching Megafault destruction. You’re likely to find yourself checking your watch to see when the movie will end.

Sugar: 10%

Amy Lane wants to be with her family. Like, really really wants to see her little girl and her husband. But she can’t, because, like, she has to stop some dumb humongous earthquake from killing a zillion people. Finally Boomer comes up with a way to stop it, and she reunites with her girl and husband. Only problem is, by then I was itching to give Amy a good slap for being completely self-absorbed and indifferent to the larger catastrophe.

Plot Fiber: 0%

Most of the problems with logic will show up in the “Pseudoscience Pill” section in this review, but there are a few non-science things that go here…all concerning Dr. Amy Lane. (Can you tell yet how much I loathed this character?)

Here are some of the things Amy Lane does:

1) She repeatedly goes off to complain to Boomer about not being with her family, or mope about not being with her family, rather than staying at emergency headquarters to fix a national catastrophe. Amy, your daughter is with your husband, it’s not like she’s wandering around on her own. Meanwhile, millions of people are dying, and you’re apparently the top expert on tectonics. Get your priorities straight, Amy. 

2) It’s ultimately Boomer who comes up with the solution that stops the Megafault, not the tectonics expert (she had to go mope some more). 

The 47th moping scene in the movie

3) Amy has Jason (okay, his Megafault character is named “Boyd,” but to me he will always be Jason) fly a helicopter straight to Louisville…to help FEMA set up? To give local officials warning of the fault headed their way? No. It’s so they can try to rescue Boomer’s mother.

4) Another helicopter incident—this movie has a thing for helis—after the Louisville scenes, Amy and Boomer steal Boyd’s helicopter and are chased by fighter planes. (I should add that Amy got Boomer to steal the plane so she could go look for hubby and daughter, not so she could do something to stop the earthquake.) Boomer and Amy don’t take the fighters seriously and think they can just SHRUG THEM OFF. Similarly, once Amy and Boomer are taken to a military base under escort for stealing a helicopter, Amy proceeds to order around the base commander. What military person would tolerate this doo-doo in real life???

I’ve gone on long enough—time to move on to pseudoscience.

Supplements

Pseudoscience Pill

Oh, boy. Talk about a pseudoscience landmine.

Simply put: tectonic plates just don’t work the way they do in this movie. If they did, Earth would have fallen apart by now.

Real tectonic plate movements involve a great deal of pushing and pulling. You’re not going to have two plates start flying away from each other, as in the movie, without catastrophic effects everywhere else. I’d bet that even North American cities far away from the so-called giant fissure, like Seattle and Miami, would suffer bad earthquakes.

Speaking of giant fissures, the fissures in the movie were unrealistic, and that is being very generous. The fissures in Megafault seem to follow a universal movie law that requires fissures to chase the heroes with laser-like accuracy. More importantly, however, real-life earthquakes don’t come close to creating such large fissures. For more examples of how movies regularly take liberties with earthquakes, check out this page.

Fissure: "Ah...I smell the heroine's hubby and little girl in that truck. MUST. GET. THEM."

The groundwater-freezing satellite scheme was nuts. How the heck can you FREEZE an earthquake into stopping? If plates are going to move, they will move and ain’t nothing stopping them.

Then there’s the Yellowstone volcano. Or caldera, I should say. Once Boomer and Amy get caught up in their plan to blow up mines and create an earthquake block (!!!), the caldera is forgotten entirely. If this caldera is capable of blowing up the entire world, uh, shouldn’t people be paying more attention to that fact after the earthquake threat is dealt with? Anybody who has read Simon Winchester’s Krakatoa will appreciate what kind of threat a cataclysmic eruption poses to human life.

Likelihood of choking: 100% 

"I'm just a li'l caldera. Ignore the lava, it won't hurt you. La la laa..."

Political Pill

Amy throws out a few flimsy lines about how ill-prepared cities are for earthquakes, but these lines have about as much impact as one drop of rain falling into the ocean. 

Likelihood of choking: 0.5%

"X-Men made more sense, and it was a comic book movie!"