Octopus: crucero de la muerte

From the studios of Nu Image, the company that will make a movie out of any script, as long as it's completely awful, comes another low-budget flop, "Octopus". Now, with this title you would think that the octopus would get a prominent place in the plot, or at least more screen time than the extras. Not so. You will only see the octopus in its full glory towards the very end of the film (if you can stay awake that long). The rest of the time, you only see a tentacle here and there, and maybe a cast member will mention, "Hey there's an octopus after us". But for the most part, the main characters spend all their time fighting bad guys and a leaky hull. I wasn't expecting much with this movie, but I thought it might be bad enough to laugh at. It wasn't even worth that. I give it a 2 out of 10 only because the effects weren't that bad, and for a budget this low, that's kind of impressive.

Ok, now I'm convinced that Hollywood producers get together and dare each other to make movies with randomly selected plot elements. This one would have been:

"Make a movie that combines Turbulence, The Hunt for Red October, Leviathan, Sphere, Speed 2, and Deep Rising."

At least, those were the movies I thought of when I was trying to figure out what this movie was. Add in Down Periscope for some "lone woman on a submarine full of horny guys" humor, and you've already seen this movie.

After a reasonably well executed pre-credits sequence, set during the Cuban missile crisis, in which a Russian submarine carrying a toxic cargo is torpedoed by the US, Octopus takes a steep nose dive into the deep waters of ridiculousness from which it never surfaces.

Jay Harrington plays Roy Turner, an inexperienced CIA agent sent on a mission to escort dangerous international terrorist Casper (Ravil Isyanov) to America via nuclear powered submarine. Of course, the trip doesn't exactly go as planned: Casper frequently slips from his bonds, hoping to somehow escape the sub and rendezvous with his evil pals (who have infiltrated the staff of a nearby ocean liner); and a massive tentacled sea monster, the result of the toxic spill 32 years earlier, seems intent on making a meal out of the sub's crew!

From the moment crazy killer Casper (unconvincingly dressed as an old woman selling pastries) carries out his daring attack on an embassy that has a 'come-and-go-as-you-like' approach to security, this daft film becomes the epitome of clichéd B-movie garbage, offering a raft of stereotypical characters, endless predictable action, and totally nonsensical plot development which will have most sane viewers reaching for the off switch, but which should prove to be reasonably enjoyable fare for fans of low-budget, bottom-shelf, STV dreck!

Bolstered by brilliantly unrestrained performances from a dedicated cast seemingly unfazed by the sheer awfulness of the script, and digital special effects scraped from the very bottom of the barrel, Octopus manages to entertain by being unbelievably dumb: before the inevitable climactic showdown between Roy and the sea creature, viewers are treated to several unconvincing punch-ups, an outstanding(ly bad) display of emotional range from Ricco Ross as brave second-in-command Brickman, sexy Caroline Lowery as a feisty female oceanographer (who looks fab in her scanties!), and the unforgettable sight of a giant octopus tentacle piercing the bad guy and pulling his helicopter into the sea!

Starts off with a Soviet sub being lost in 1962 while on its way to Cuba. Cut to four decades later.

There's confusing hi-jinks, political intrigue, and traitors aboard an American sub that find the old sub. There's also a giant Octopus wandering around that makes periodic (and oddly timely) attacks, whenever it serves to thicken the plot. A spy is aboard the sub, and endeavors to uhhh, umm, do something bad I guess. The script doesn't make it clear, and the novice acting by the cast doesn't help, either.

Then the sub meets up with a cruise ship (!) What? Oh, and more spies show up too. The script darts around so much you'll get dizzy trying to follow it.

The final scene is about the only part that has anything of interest happen, as the Octopus makes his finest appearance. He's pretty nasty looking, as the director loves to take CGI shots into his mouth, as he attacks. Most of what you see is sloppy CGI, but at least you get to see something happen after waiting through the entire movie.

A goofy, bargain basement movie, good for sporadic moments of chaos and comedy.

"Octopus" is utterly boring; and patently ridiculous. What a pathetic waste of a perfectly good Cephalopod. So much time is spent setting up the plot that the octopus gets lost. Sure, the little heroine is totally cute. She can act too; but she can't save this mess on her own. The title "Octopus" is almost a non sequitur! During the interminable espionage conundrums, I kept thinking, "Who cares?" and "Where's the octopus?" And since when do octopi have insect mouthparts? Wouldn't a six foot long cephalopod beak suffice to scare us? The director forgot the monster, and was seemingly trying to remake "Executive Decision" in a submarine; badly. The dialogue, the action and the resolution of this muddle all violated the one axiom of monster pictures. They were boring. The entire film is boring, from start to finish. I am a dedicated monster picture fan and I won't bother to watch this catastrophe again.

I am frequently amazed that none of the directors of modern monster pictures never consider the "Old Man and the Sea" concept; the idea that nature itself is frightening and challenging. This entire film could have been made with six or seven people in a sailboat, trying to fend off a large cephalopod, or two. After all, we need some octopus fodder.

Don't bother with this one. Really. If you're a monster fan it will just make you mad.