Shark Hunter

Having switched over to late night Sky Movies, I thought this was just going to be another rubbishy clone movie that I could switch my brain off to, then it turned out to be the completely opposite. The tense bits were tense, the special effects were very good for a "hmm, never saw 'that' one at the movies" movie, and the acting was OK. My only complaints with it were plot wise, the crew seemed to very quickly jump into plan to capture a giant monster that none of them believed existed in the first place, and the investigation of the research centre to which they were sent to 'investigate', encompassed nothing more than cursory glance and the extraction of a Shark tooth from the side of a wall. The ending was also a bit, well... unsatisfactory. Other than that, it held my attention and is a very worthy "Aaah, giant Shark" movie.

In the wake of the surprise success "Deep Blue Sea" (1999), which is still well worth seeing, this less ambitious follow-up was made in inexpensive Bulgaria.

Antonio Sabato Jr. Goes on the hunt for the legendary ancient shark Megalodon with a motley crew. The young, dynamic marine researcher (Sabato Jr. With long hair like the ones nerds wore at the turn of the millennium) carries a traumatic childhood experience with him and, despite all the difficulties, can now face the final battle with the monstrous primal fish .

As a former underwear model, Antonio Sabato Jr. Of course, he sometimes takes off his shirt and shows off his abdominal muscles, but he doesn't achieve the charisma of his father Antonio Sabato (GOLDEN GLOBE nomination in 1967 for GRAND PRIX).

The megalodon has more charisma, as it can bare its teeth in a fearsome manner. The rest of the crew consists of Christian Toulali, Grand L. Bush and the very blonde Heather Marie Marsden, none of whom rise above stereotypical portrayals.

You can watch it if you like shark horror!

I got to see Antonio Sabato, Jr. fresh from his appearance at the Republican convention in this film. It should better be titled Shark Destroyer because that's the mission Sabato is on.

You can't really blame him, this prehistoric sixty foot Megladon survivor took his parents from him. Since then Sabato has become an oceanographer, but all that was training the subduing of his particular white whale.

After another couple of incidents where this big guy did some serious damage, the last incident to an underwater laboratory, Sabato gets assigned to a submarine where the people there are divided between capturing and killing the big shark. Of course Sabato wants to kill it, but Heather Marie Marsden wants to take it alive.

This is a plot we've seen a lot of, most especially in the first version of The Thing. Marsden also a scientist sounds a whole lot like scientist Robert Cornthwaite from that much better film.

Think of Moby Dick when you see this. With the script most definitely not written by Herman Melville.

I saw this in the video store, placed right next to "Shark Attack III," which also deals with a Megalodon. I'm a big fan of Megs, having read Steve Alten's book "Meg" and the sequel. Although I had read the horrible reviews on Shark Attack II and seen the first Shark Attack movie, and imagined it would be as god awful as those. I was actually pretty surprised. Despite Antonio Sabato Jr in the lead role, the acting was fairly decent for this type of movie. The special effects were very well done, and the shark was very realistic, along with the sub. The plot was pretty typical of some of the TBS-made movies you see a lot of, but I rented it more for the action.

I had read some decent reviews of this movie and decided to give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised. The scenes with the shark were realistic and there was a lot of action. The ending to the film could have been more upbeat, but overall it was fairly entertaining.

Luckily, I saw this movie on the Sci-Fi channel and didn't waste money renting it. Yes, it was pretty bad.

Lets begin: Antonio Sabato Jr. plays Dr. Spencer Northcut, a professor and quite possibly the only human on the planet who can design every facet of a deep sea research submarine (subtle sarcasm there, folks), who's family was attacked by a shark called a Megaladon that became extinct over 40 million years ago. The problem is that Dr. Northcut cannot seem to get a berth on the very sub that he created, maybe because of his obsession to get even with the monster shark that took his parents from him, or maybe because he's just not qualified for a position on the sub (did you ever think about THAT, Northcut?), and he spends the first fifteen minutes of the movie pouting about it. Then, as if a sign from above, a research facility is destroyed and it's Northcut to the rescue. Why he would suddenly become qualified to help investigate the destroyed facility is beyond me but he finally gets a berth on "his sub". As the story rolls along we also find out that Northcut is a qualified diver, paleontologist, submarine commander, mini-sub driver and martyr extraordinaire. Wow, can this guy do it all or what?

The other characters were almost as bad, not to mention most of the acting. Whomever casted Heather Marie Marsden (in a laughable performance) should seriously think about another career and the diction coach should have been fired. I don't have a problem with foreign actors but if they're going to use American slang at least do it properly. Example: One of the guys in the research facility tells another guy, "I sick of your stupid-ass games" but the way he said it, it sounded like, "I'm sick of your stupid ASS games." I've been trying to figure out what those are ever since. The only character I liked was Harrington, a no-nonsense mini-sub driver that thinks Northcut is an unqualified nut that could endanger the entire crew. Grand L. Bush's portrayal of Harrington was the most realistic of all the characters and the only one who questions Northcut's qualifications...finally.

The animation was also atrocious. Whose idea was it to make the shark look like it was snarling? I almost expected to hear it growling! And don't forget to check out the radar display. At one point there is a large, green shape of a shark coming across the screen! If anyone has ever seen an actual radar screen (and I use one on my boat) they'll know that images are just big blots of color and not distinguishable from one another: could be land, could be a boat or it could be a channel marker. Radar's do not decipher what's in front of you, so the image of a shark floating by was pretty funny indeed!

If I have to describe this movie in one word it would be "Pffflllttt" (big fat raspberry).