Movie Review: Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda (2014)

Synopsis: Not long after the original sharktopus was destroyed its offspring is living in an aquarium, where biologist Lorena is attempting to figure out a way to control its aggressive nature. When a scientist creates another hybrid, combining pterodactyl DNA with a barracuda, only to have the experiment fall under the control of a hacker, he attempts to hijack the sharktopus to fight it, only to unleash two terrors in the ocean.

Who's in it? The movie stars Robert Carradine, Rib Hillis, Katie Savoy, Akari Endo and Hensy Pichardo.


Review: My wife and I enjoyed Sharktopus more than expected, enough for me to be interested in seeing the sequel, Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda. We finally watched it tonight and not to sound a bit too much like my teenage daughter, thought it was just "meh."

Sharktopus wasn't a great movie, just better than expected. As a result, my expectations for this sequel weren't set very high. However, even then, it failed to meet them. 

My biggest problem with this film was, despite the title, the two main monsters really don't spend a whole lot of time fighting with each other. They have a handful of run-ins throughout the movie, but they are very short battles that are neither exciting nor have any real impact on the plot (at least until the very end). In fact, once both creatures were no longer under human control, the fighting didn't even make sense. It wasn't like there weren't plenty of humans on the beach for them to share. 

As far as the humans in the movie are concerned, the film basically just follows the same plot as the original. You have a biologist (Savoy) teamed up with a guy with military training (Hillis) and an evil scientist (Carradine) attempting to make a profit selling a biological weapon and a ditzy reporter (Endo) trying to make a name for herself. Other than two monsters, there wasn't much else different. This includes the part about the creatures being bulletproof but somehow not able to deflect a speargun.

I also felt like the movie could have spent a bit more time developing Lorena's relationship with the sharktopus. At times it seemed like there was a connection there, but the film stops short of making it a significant part of the plot. Plus, the evidence showing the connection only makes the ending all that more confusing. It was as though there was supposed to be a completely different story and they changed it at the last minute.

Final Opinion: The first movie surprised me. This movie wound up being what I expected the first movie to be. I'm undecided if I'll give the third film a chance as a result.

My Grade: D

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