Megalodon 18 Metros de terror

I just saw this movie last night. I bought it for 3 euros on DVD so you can't go wrong there. The reason I bought it is simple: I like movies about sharks and there are only a few about the Meg(alodon). Too few, but I heard that Jan de Bont wants to film the book Meg (great book) so lets hope that will happen. About this film: You get what you expect: A cheap-looking, low-budget (horror?)film. It takes about 45 minutes before we get to see the shark, so until then the viewer is bored with mediocre acting, simple character- and story building and cheap SE. The thing that bothered me the most were the computer generated effects. I hate that sooooo much and this whole movie comes from the computer: The snow, the helicopter, the oil rig and the shark. I understand that the budget was low but a computer isn't the solution. The other thing was that there were only a few actors in the movie: Should I believe that a handful of people operate a huge oil platform? Yeah right! The movie is about a shark, but the shark isn't convincing either. It looks good standing stil, but the way it moves, swims attacks etc etc isn't very good. And the climax...You almost have to see it to believe: It left me with unbelief...so dumb and simple.

It's a short movie (1 hr 12) minutes, the sound was horrible (DTS!), full screen, but what killed the movie were the computer effects....so not worth your time or money.

It's easy to pick on MEGALODON and call it a bad movie. It's not original, it lacks a bit suspense every now and then, the acting is just average and you can tell that the budget was low, to name only a few things. But if you manage to look beyond its mediocrity, you can see that the film-makers really tried to make it as decent as possible. And you can only appreciate that. Now , if it wasn't for CGI-technology, this movie simply would not have been made. Only the actors and a few sets were real, the rest all CGI. It looks real good most of the time(the helicopter in the beginning and the sailboat at the end,...) but sometimes it fails desperately (that same helicopter crashing on the platform).

You already know that this movie is about a prehistoric mega-shark rising from the depths and terrorizing the crew of an oil-rig. And with it's title being MEGALODON, I thought the mega-shark was considerably lame. There's only one fairly decent attack-scene when he bursts through the ice. Decent in terms of that he finally does something. The rest of its screen time you see him swimming around bumping into things. Well at least they didn't make him roar or something. And the explosion at the end was ridiculous: They just disappeared!? But still, this movie never becomes really boring, 'cause the CGI frequently provides nice images to look at, with the 'cave-exploring'-sequence being a good example (nice glowing flubbery creatures). There are a few other shots worth mentioning. They're pretty pointless, but stylish. It was when they showed that smaller dinosaur-fish with the sharp teeth. The creature-designer actually made a real good-looking sculpture (no CGI) for this one.

I admit, to some MEGALODON may not live up to its humble 4-star-rating, but I think you should at least appreciate the effort the film-makers made for trying to make it work. And even if it can't compete with most of the underwater-creature-flicks, it still is way better than that Casper Van Dien SHARK ATTACK-tripe.

This better-than-average effort reminds me of those old 50s style B movie sci-fi monster flicks because there's a well-developed and interesting story with good acting, that has a gradual build to the eventual release and attack of the Megalodon. Not boring in the least while it builds to the climax, except perhaps for those viewers whose attention span is short or who have been weened on horror flicks that are long on mayhem and short on plot. I consider this a valiant effort, with it's only weakness being the limited, but well-done, CGI effects. Overall, it has the look of a larger budget and the cast of unknowns took their work seriously.

At only an hour and a half, it's not a bad little flick. The acting is satisfying, there's a few good one-liners, the visual effects (all CGI, and well done considering the tiny team that did them) aren't distracting enough to detract from things, and the story was plotted and played out decently. Obviously could have been more with a bigger budget, but that's a truism for all indie productions. The small handful of makeup effects were especially well done.

The only nitpick I have is with the sound mix. In some places the dialoge can be difficult to make out, but nothing a quick rewind-replay and a closer listen won't clear up.

6 1/2 or 7 out of 10, considering it does better than some Hollywood efforts (Deep Blue Sea, anybody?).

If you plan to watch this movie hoping to see another good action-thriller movie, with bad shark attacking movie, just forget this one: bad acting, bad story, awful FX. It has nothing but a good name. I was hoping to see another Deep Blue Sea-like movie, only with greater shark and better feeling. Well I'm very disappointed. I tried to watch the entire movie, but after 15 minutes I've started to fast-forward the movie and watch only the key scenes. Moreover the famous Megalodon, is poorly designed and animated. The outdoor scenes seems to be computer-rendered and the overall feeling of the movie compares with the HBO made movies. Bottom line: if you want to see a shark movie watch again Deep Blue Sea - You'll be more satisfied.