Dinoshark

Global warming causes ice shelf to calve releasing prehistoric beasty into the modern world. So right off the bat SyFy Channel doesn't want to be accused of originality so they use a pretty overused monster trope, and then they decided that they don't want to accused of being entertaining either so they gave us a film that is 90 minutes of sheer boredom as the dinoshark swims and kills with not an ounce of self awareness or winking at the camera that a film of this genre kind of relies on to be successful. When your a TV movie and can't have actual gore or gratuitous nudity you have to make up for it with a fun and clever script, this film didn't even bother with a script at all. Eric Balfour (Skyline) has got to be the most boring of leads imaginable, and he heads a cast of mostly overdubbed Mexican actors. Pathetic.

Eric Balfour's character describes seeing this horned creature attacking about, later the lead girl looks up stuff on the "internet" and finds artists renderings of a horned prehistoric shark. Strangely the dinoshark that we get in this movie does not have the horns described by Balfour or like the one in the drawings. I guess the CGI team didn't bother reading the non-existent script either.

Roger Corman should be ashamed to have his named attached to a piece of dung like this. It's not even bad/fun, it's simply boring/bad.

In an arctic region, melting glaciers cause the release of an ancient baby "Dinoshark". Three years later, the now monstrously adult beast turns up off the Alaskan coastline. It eats a diver and, apparently, develops a taste for human flesh. Migrating southward brings "Dinoshark" to tourist-rich Puerto Vallarta, Mexico which has a good food supply. Handsome young "Fin Seeker" tour boat captain Eric Balfour (as Trace McGraw) is the one who first realizes the danger and tries to stop the carnage. "Dinoshark" could disrupt the community's annual fiesta...

You would expect legendary low-budget producer Roger Corman to excel in Syfy Channel shark movies, but the expert fails to make the most of this assignment. "Dinoshark" is sloppy and substandard, even for the genre and TV movie outlet. As if to rub salt in the wound, Mr. Corman contributes a lackluster acting role (as Frank Reeves). The Corman fun is missing. Likable in the lead, Mr. Balfour is left holding the water. His attractive co-stars are led by beautiful blonde Princeton graduate and water polo captain Iva Hasperger (as Carol Brubaker).

*** Dinoshark (3/13/10) Kevin O'Neill ~ Eric Balfour, Iva Hasperger, Aaron Diaz, Roger Corman

The title promises some good kitschy schlock fun, and the film delivers it. A prehistoric beast that once roamed primeval waters is back, and very hungry. It visits Puerto Vallarta to hunt and feast on anything that moves.

The creature is designed pretty well, and it's quite an acrobat. It lunges out of water to chomp on copters and para-sailors. It hangs ten to grab surfers, and jumps over road blocks set up by the local policia. Why it's here is not really explained, but it may have to do with not eating for 65 million years or so; this thing has one dino-appetite. Nobody is safe, and Sharky devours a few people you wouldn't expect. Walk-on characters fare worst of all; appearing just long enough to encounter you-know-who.

A tour-boat guy, a girl scientist who works a menial job, and a big-dino-fish expert are the only ones that bother to do anything about the monster. By the way, the white-coated expert on prehistoric sharks is played by none other than B-movie wizard Roger Corman himself, in a rare turn in front of the camera. And he does a good job in the role, too.

Good action, combined with some cheesy effects, makes for a good ride as our heroes try to stop the ancient creature's hunger rampage. This one is pretty fun to watch.

I just saw it at the 6th Annual Puerto Vallarta Film Festival. I went basically because I live in PV and a few friends were possibly going to appear as extras. Given that it was a low-budget made-for-TV movie I was prepared to be disappointed. Instead I was entertained. It's a bit of an homage to "Jaws" in both the shark scenes and the musical score. Even with the bar set that high it still managed to achieve some of the same types of shocked reactions from the audience, while at other times they laughed. I'm not a connoisseur of B-movies but those that are should really get a kick out this film. And it was great to see producer Roger Corman in a cameo role as the marine biologist expert. I had the honor of shaking his hand as we left the theater. The cast was well anchored by Eric Balfour in the lead role. Perhaps this role will lead to bigger and better things for him. And finally it was nice to see a film in a theater, for a change, that had no foul language or gratuitous nudity. Taken in the context of its budget and its intended distribution, this is a pretty darn nice little movie.

A dinoshark comes out of hibernation from being frozen for millions of years, to dine on some human flesh.

I picked this one up for some cheesy, it's so bad it's fun, lets have a good time, type of film. I'm so disappointed to say that Dinoshark failed on so many levels to entertain me, to make me laugh at the horribleness of it all or even keep my attention. I have to recommend Sharktopus over this one.

Eric Balfour continues to appear in horrible films, I don't understand why. I would hope that he assumed that he could amass some cult fans out there, but this film is too much of a mess for even those people looking for bad entertainment. I had a decent time seeing Roger Corman on the screen though, he knows how to act in a film like this.

The kills are BORING. It's the same thing over and over and over again. Dinoshark swims up to someone, crappy shot of it eating someone, then fill the screen with red to disorient the viewer from the fact that we have no budget to showcase a decent death. Sharktopus was more creative. Dinoshark feels like Megashark and Sharktopus, minus all the awesomeness and fun. The creature design is decent, from what I could see of it. The only cool images this film had were of the over the head shots of the water. Seeing the shadow of it swim underwater was neat. The rest is garbage.

The continuity errors were enough to make me laugh, glasses on face in one scene, completely gone the next. Not to mention that one character has a BEARD in one scene, then nothing for the rest of the movie. It literally pops up out of nowhere. I could appreciate the lame continuity issues, had the film been more aware of this. Instead, it feels oblivious to it all.

The giant shark is able to swim in the shallowest water ever. Literally two feet away from the land, it pops up to eat a croc. What? Insert Jaws theme rip-off and lame death scenes and you have yourself a terrible film. I guess I was expecting a cheesy fun factor here, but instead I got a horribly boring effort that hopes to capitalize on the title of the film more than anything else.

Dinoshark is a miss.