Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep

I've never read JAWS by Peter Benchley but have of course seen the movie andJAWS is considered to be one of the few films that improves greatly onthe book . Much of this I'm told is to do with a large number of subplots being jettisoned in the adaptation , leaving only the main plot of a man eating shark and of the protagonists mission to kill it . One can't help thinking the producers of this movie should have done something similar

The major problem is that much of the running time is taken up with a bunch of bad guys wanting to get their hands on a very expensive Greek opal . In many ways the story resembles another Benchley story THE DEEP which might not be a problem as such but when you've got a film called KRAKEN:TENTACLES OF THE DEEP then a prospective audience is expecting a giant squid to be the focus of the story rather than humans . The producers seem aware of this shoehorning a squid attack just to remind the audience there's a squid central to the plot when in fact it's the producers themselves who obviously need reminding

As it's produced by Nu Image Films the production values are rather poor with the squid being a rather obvious CGI creation . Like nearly every film featuring a giant squid it makes a roaring sound ( Squids are mute ) and can grab people off the decks of ships ( Considered impossible by leading scientists ) and of course when someone gets devoured underwater there's a big bubble of blood rising to the surface . Not only that but biologists are all in their early twenties , have blonde hair and walk around in bikini tops thereby exposing their admirable mammary glands . One can't help thinking Nu Image Films and The Sci-Fi channel are in cahoots to get more guys to sign up to university science classes . I doubt however if anyone who worked on this film would be able to spell the word science

So here in Oregon we have our share of crappy weather Saturdays. I personally choose to enjoy a day of lame Sci-Fi (or SyFy, whatever) channel movies. Yes they're all B-movies, but some are just so bad they're GREAT!

The Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep, however, is NOT one of those.

This film puts the UN in unwatchable. The plot is so thin you couldn't cut it with a razor. The acting is atrocious! Especially Charlie O'Conner! My god is he bad! His acting in this film actually makes Victoria Pratt and Jack Scalia look like Oscar nominees! While we're on the subject, Mr. Scalia is supposed to be Greek. But his accent changes constantly from European, to Austrailian, to non-existent! The directing? I don't know if the director even showed up!

My suggestion? Skip this one. It's boring, contrived, nonsense. Too much silly, predictable treasure hunting, not enough giant squid.

This movie has nothing going for it all. It is another jaws rip-off involving a squid instead of a shark, and what is worse is that it has already been done before. If it wasn't $2, I wouldn't have bought it.

That said, I enjoyed it. The most interesting parts were not involving the squid at all - it is more about the treasure hunts and the race to find the opal. If only the characters' motivations were a bit more convincing - especially the villains.

The Squid itself? Pretty average CGI, but what could you really do without a huge budget for this sort of thing. However, there is some surprisingly convincingly violent scenes in there.

Anyway, if you are in the mood for monster flicks, this does the job.

"Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep" is an all-right creature feature.

**SPOILERS**

Off the coast of, a diving crew, Nicole, (Victoria Pratt) Jenny, (Kristi Angus) and Michael, (Cory Montkeith) find a collection of sunken ships from throughout different time periods sunk in the area. Ray, (Charlie O'Connell) hears this and offers his help. After going on a dive, they are attacked by a giant squid, and barely make it back. Maxwell Odemus, (Jack Scalia) an old rival of Nicole's, arrives and offers a reluctant Nicole a proposition about the creature. After finding the true nature of the treasure found earlier, the two teams race to find it before being killed by the protective squid.

The Good News: As far as giant squid movies go, this one wasn't all that bad. The best aspect is that it decides not to spend all the time on the creature and instead weaves into the lives of others, rather than just being stuck over a single night of carnage. It takes place over a couple days, and that's a rare sight for a film like this. It was also a pretty nice idea to not make it just a biological mutation and was instead just a regular creature. That makes for a far more believable monster. The underwater action is all great, combining to make some great moments. The first attack near the wreck is pretty suspenseful, as it's hard to really get a sense of what's going on in the scene and there's an air that something isn't quite right. It's one of the few scenes around that features a similar idea that's successfully executed right, making the suspense out of what is on-screen through the elements presented. The second dive does the suspense to a much lesser degree, but it makes up for it with the addition of a couple kills and some gore to the mix that is a little welcome. The few non-dragging deaths in here was also nice, but it's only too bad that it hardly ever happened.

The Bad News: Frankly, this one suffers from one nagging problem that all similar films suffer from; the use of bad, cheap, phony looking CGI to render the monster. It looks very bad, hardly ever meshes with the actors on the screen, and doesn't really gel with the general rest of the film. It even changes sizes a couple times, making it less of threat. It really should be stopped. The only other really big gripe with the film is that it has a majority of deaths that just involve pulling someone under the water. Most of the kills are done that way, and it really didn't do a lot to establish a general feel for the creature. a couple of different methods would've made it a little more of a frightening creature. There's still a couple of other little moments in here that didn't work or were examples of the usual disregard for logic, plot, continuity or whatever else the Sci-Fi Channel's originals are consistently missing, which are in abundance here as well.

The Final Verdict: It's a pretty decent film, but there's still some decent work in there along the way. The biggest thing is that the killer in the film isn't all that threatening, which can really destroy many films. Had that been fixed, it would've been an alright film at best.

Rated : Violence and some language

Not a bad story, but the low budget rears its ugly head at times to undermine the effectiveness of the movie. A lot of the plot is predictable, but the film moves quickly and takes some time to introduce characters so you at least have some involvement and know what's going on. An illustration of the low budget is when a motor boat is "destroyed," you only see this as a CGI image from a distance. (No boats were harmed during the filming of this movie.) I also love the "metal mask," that looks like a pie-tin mold.

It's another big-sea-creature-on-the-loose story, but this one actually has an unusual motive for its vicious brutality (not simply hunger), a plot twist often absent in these made-for-TV flicks. The human characters are two teams of scientific artifacts treasure hunters (sort of an aquatic version of Raiders of the Lost Ark), and they're both after the same artifact. The bad guys all wear black so you know they're the bad guys; the baddest of the baddies (and the leader) always wears black suits, even though all the action is at a beach or on the water. Every line of dialog this guy has is a threat to somebody; they could have put a sign up saying "Generic Theat in Progress" whenever he shows up. The good guys wear other colors, even in their scuba gear so you know who's who during underwater fight scenes. The creature's inevitable attacks predictably interrupt these fights, and provide for other common monster movie clichés.

Certainly not a landmark film, but OK for a watch if you like these sea monster movies, or if you have nothing better to do.