Mega-Shark vs Mecha-Shark

release year: 2014
genre: SyFy monster
viewing setting: TV, 8/30/14

synopsis: A gigantic shark escapes from an iceberg, but fortunately the Navy has a giant mechanical shark ready to deploy against the prehistoric behemoth.

impressions: This sounded more fun than it was. I guess when you have a 200-foot-long mega-shark, you'd assume the mechanical shark would be of similar size...yet this one could be piloted by just one person, and seemed small. Add to this the randomness of the shark attacks, and the world's least-fit-to-command-Navy-admiral, and it becomes tougher to watch. The moment that strains all credibility is when both sharks leap out of the ocean and reach the altitude where an airliner is flying ABOVE THE CLOUDS. A single incident like this immediately lowers your movie to another level, without dispute or appeal. Still, it was fairly entertaining, especially when the mecha-shark went out of control while in land mode. I can only hope that one day, Syfy releases a gigantic boxed set with the entire Megashark series. I would buy it for the novelty value alone.

acting: Christopher Judge and Elisabeth Rohm do decent jobs as the main couple. Matt Lagan is an idiotic Navy admiral. Debbie Gibson has about sixty seconds of total screen time via three scenes, and she uses an idiotic grin for most of that time to convey her extreme worry about the shark crisis.

final word: Novel idea, but inherently silly and not always optimally executed.

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