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.

After a piece of ice thaws near Alaska, the prehistoric dinoshark makes its way to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico to harass the tourists. And, of course, eat them.

The cover on this film is a bit misleading. What you see is a shark with the head of a T-Rex. In the actual film, though, what you get is basically just a shark (albeit one with a rocky, tough skin). And the graphics are just as bad as any other SyFy film.

If this film has anything going for it, that would be Roger Corman as Dr. Frank Reeves. Not that he is a good actor, but it is nice to see a legend like Corman showing his face -- especially since he is the producer of this trash. Lead actor Eric Balfour is just average. I could praise him for past work (the "Texas Chain Saw" reboot), but he was poorly cast here. Playing a Mexican local, he has no Latino blood in him and speaks with a Boston accent (despite being from LA).

Does this film have a global warming message? Hard to say. Clearly the dinoshark arrives because the ice caps are melting, but the film never explicitly states why. Could be man, maybe just an earthquake shook it loose. Either way, the real problem is that a shark survives being frozen for millions of years, not the global climate issue.

Although I thought "Sharktopus" was way over-hyped and poorly made, I have to say it is better than "Dinoshark". This film really has nothing going for it, unless you want to listen to the audio commentary and hear Corman try (and fail) to defend it.

Dinoshark (2010)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

When a big ice chunk in the Arctic breaks free, it lets loose a prehistoric shark, which swims down to Mexico where it begins to eat anyone who gets in its way. A couple people (Eric Balfour, Iva Hasperger) decide to try and track it down and kill it after their friend is killed by the beast but a local scientist (Roger Corman) thinks this thing might not be able to be stopped. DINOSHARK is yet another made-for-TV creature flick that manages to be quite boring even though there's non-stop action and plenty of red stuff to go around. If you've seen one of these movies then you pretty much know what to expect as we're always given some far-fetched story that really doesn't make too much sense and of course there's the bad CGI monster that looks so fake that you can't help but not connect to the movie. These type of "B" movies have been around for decades but it's pretty amazing that so many of the current ones fail so badly. I think some of the makers of these films need to go back and watch some of the earlier ones and realize that you should just try to have some cheap fun. The characters in this film are so unlikeable that you really don't care about them and this here just hurts the film even more. Even worse is that the story is so silly that it's hard to care about what's going on and things don't get any better after the opening minutes. The CGI creature looks incredibly bad but this here is to be expected. The gore effects are also mostly CGI and one really wonders if the budget couldn't have been raised a few bucks to where they could have at least bought some fake blood to squirt around instead of having to use CGI. Both Balfour and Hasperger are decent in their parts but neither are given much to work with. What keeps this film moving is Corman who actually gets a pretty good role here. He appears in a good chunk of the picture and while he's not the greatest actor in the world he's at least watchable and it's good to see him in front of the camera again.

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.