Roboshark

The good news is that of the SyFy shark movies, Roboshark is one of the better ones, and among the more tolerable SyFy outings. The not so good news is that that doesn't stop Roboshark from not being particularly good or great.

Roboshark is one of SyFy's least amateurish-looking movies, with nice scenery, slicker-than-usual photography and a design for the Roboshark that has some menace and is one of SyFy's cooler- and- less-cheap- looking. The Roboshark is also well-utilised and unlike a lot of SyFy creatures has a personality, a threatening one rather than being too goofy that it brings unintentional humour. The movie clearly knows what it's trying to be and which audience it's aiming for, and in the process doesn't try to do too much while not playing it too safe either, and contains some clever inside jokes and hilarious one-liners. There are also fun performances from Laura Dale and particularly Nigel Barber, the only ones in the cast who show that they can still have fun without overacting, as well as some spirited and confident direction.

On the other hand, the rest of the cast wildly overact and in the case of the extras and Matt Rippy to an embarrassing degree, something that really hurts the tension. The characters are barely developed and some are annoying, which makes them difficult to root for, the movie drags a little in the exposition moments and some of the more dramatic parts veer on turgid and ham-fisted. The story is well-intentioned and clearly knows what its aim and audience is, but the silliness gets very over-the-top sometimes that it gets ridiculous (like with the bacon) which gets in the way of generating suspense or tension, and it gets tiring towards the end. Aside from a catchy opening, the movie is generically scored too with not an awful lot standing out as memorable, and while the opening is fun and quite scary the climax of the movie is predictable and rushed..

All in all, not great but one of the better and more tolerable SyFy shark movies. A decent guilty pleasure-type movie if you will. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Roboshark (2015)

* (out of 4)

A UFO drops an object into the ocean, which is eaten by a great white shark. Soon the shark turns into the title creature and goes on a killing spree in Seattle, Washington.

ROBOSHARK thinks it's a lot better than the countless other killer/mutant shark movies that have been shown on SyFy or gone straight to the Redbox. This one here likes to think its in on the joke and the dialogue here has a lot of so-called wit throwing jokes at SyFy and other shark movies. The problem is that this film is just downright annoying from start to finish and it doesn't contain a single spark of energy.

There are a lot of issues with this film but we can start with the main story, which has a reporter, her cameraman and her daughter running around constantly trying to get the scoop on the shark. This here leads to a social media storm and several fights with another reporter trying to get the same stuff. All of this was rather annoying and it certainly didn't make you want to like the characters. This is meant for some tongue in cheek action so I won't bash the film for not being scary or anything like that.

The performances, for the most part, are decent enough but we're really not here for that, are we? The death scenes are all bland and bloodless and I'd argue that the CGI shark looks okay considering what this movie is. Still, ROBOSHARK is just a flat out boring movie that can be skipped.

It is stupidly funny, but that does not mean it is any good. One learns new things, like submarines have the words United States Navy in large block letters painted on the hull. When soldiers march on, the all say hut, hut. Fire chiefs in Seattle do not wear white helmets like fire chiefs elsewhere. The main substory is between Trish and Veronica, two TV reporters from Channel 55. Trish is a weather person who appears in costume, and had one particularly terrible 'scoop' news report that banished her to third rate stories. Veronica is a blond prima donna who hogs the limelight. The acting is third rate, the shark is comical and done in very poor CGI. It simply is a very sloppy movie with very poor special effects.

Right away I knew that when you cast, Nigel Barber (Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!) into any movie, you are shooting for another campy movie success. What SyFy does lately is push out this camp more than ever. What SyFy failed to remember is what really made "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1978)" successful... Elvia (Cassandra Peterson) who hosted the movie on her late night TV show back in the day.

No one is going to sit and yuck it up at those movies without some late night horror host rifting on it. We watched the campy movies because of Elvira's "Movie Macabre", Joel Hodgson's "Mystery Science Theater 3000", Count Gore de Vol, or Karlos Borloff. This made the campy horror sci-fi movie watchable.

SyFy needs STOP cranking out the camp. They use to have a lot better programming on in the late 1990s. Remember series like Farscape, The Invisible Man, Battlestar Galactica, Good vs. Evil, and Eureka? Their movies were also about space and fantasy. Every now and then SyFy network CEO comes along with a new bright idea and we get only the one flavor. The network has these bad phases. Let's do nothing but ghost busting reality TV! Oh great idea...

This movie is the product of a company who thinks, if one campy shark movie is deemed a success, more will be a gold rush.

A metallic sphere from space is swallowed by a shark, which then turns into evil Roboshark & proceeds to wreck havoc on Seattle. Everything about this dross is bad. Perhaps the only thing that I liked was a co ordinate given as THX1138, an obvious nod to the sci fi film from the 1970's. This movie is very tongue in cheek, with one character saying events are "starting to look like one of those Sci Fi movies". Only this is probably the worst of the lot. And thats saying something! In an early scene a mother asks her husband, referring to her daughter & her mobile phone, " why does she waste her time watching this nonsense?". Why indeed am I watching this nonsense!!?? Don't make the same mistake.