Megalodon (2002) Online

It's easy to pick on MEGALODON and call it a bad movie. It's not original, it lacks a bit suspense every now and then, the acting is just average and you can tell that the budget was low, to name only a few things. But if you manage to look beyond its mediocrity, you can see that the film-makers really tried to make it as decent as possible. And you can only appreciate that. Now , if it wasn't for CGI-technology, this movie simply would not have been made. Only the actors and a few sets were real, the rest all CGI. It looks real good most of the time(the helicopter in the beginning and the sailboat at the end,...) but sometimes it fails desperately (that same helicopter crashing on the platform).

You already know that this movie is about a prehistoric mega-shark rising from the depths and terrorizing the crew of an oil-rig. And with it's title being MEGALODON, I thought the mega-shark was considerably lame. There's only one fairly decent attack-scene when he bursts through the ice. Decent in terms of that he finally does something. The rest of its screen time you see him swimming around bumping into things. Well at least they didn't make him roar or something. And the explosion at the end was ridiculous: They just disappeared!? But still, this movie never becomes really boring, 'cause the CGI frequently provides nice images to look at, with the 'cave-exploring'-sequence being a good example (nice glowing flubbery creatures). There are a few other shots worth mentioning. They're pretty pointless, but stylish. It was when they showed that smaller dinosaur-fish with the sharp teeth. The creature-designer actually made a real good-looking sculpture (no CGI) for this one.

I admit, to some MEGALODON may not live up to its humble 4-star-rating, but I think you should at least appreciate the effort the film-makers made for trying to make it work. And even if it can't compete with most of the underwater-creature-flicks, it still is way better than that Casper Van Dien SHARK ATTACK-tripe.

"Megalodon" is a technical failure. Its visual effects are about four or five years obsolete (minus a couple well-done, but scattered bits). The sound mixing is atrociously amateur. The biggest offense, however, is the editing. Let's just say there are many needless "filler" shots as well as frequently, overly, held out ones. From the start you will question the ineptitude of the filmmakers.

But I will direct this review at fans of underwater terror, being that they will be the few that should happen to read it. Good movies in this sub-genre are hard to find. Of course there isn't always a "Deep Blue Sea" to go see in the theaters, so its fortunate most video stores carry a plethora of shark flicks. As I stated above, this one is by no means a triumph in film-making- but that doesn't make it a bad movie. It moves quickly and nicely leads up to its good scenes. Also, the plausibility of the prehistoric creature is surprisingly well-done. With these good attributes at hand, "Megalodon" is mostly a guilty, fun time. The complications that arise are suspenseful, (if you can withstand genuinely bad CGI effects) but they don't do nearly enough with the good story they have.

With a bigger budget and a better filmmaker, this could have been great. But it isn't...so try and enjoy what you can of this watchable, but obviously generic film.

I have seen my share of crap animals run havoc flicks. I have bitten myself through octopus, crocodile,bloodsurf, spiders 1 and 2 and countless others..and of course Sharkhunter. This latter movie making a run for the crappiest of the crappiest in a race with spiders 2.

These films all show, to a various degree how hard it is to make a decent big animal or animals causing havoc on a tight budget. Even if you have one of the biggest killing machines - a 70 foot shark- that ever lived it is hard..sharkhunter again.

So with fear I started to watch this one, believing that the oke looking trailer was just a smoke screen for another crap outing. One hour and 18 minutes later ( the rest are the titles, short flick this one) I was pleasantly surprised. It is obvious the producers had very little money to start with, and they made the best of it. Setpieces and CGI ( because of the costs almost everything you see is CGI right upon the oil rig itself) are decent and working and the acting is believable too. The story - basically a way to present el sharko- is good enough to be believed and the whole act leading to this is very well made.

SO is there anything to nag about? *spoiler*

Sure; - Where the CGI fails is the shark itself, very little movement and not enough shark action..when you see the shark ( he people at least you see the thing, this is not as common in this genre) it doesn't do that much.

• the female reporter thingy and the environmental take on things don't work at all.

• and what does that funny looking alien fish beasty doing in the beginning, with a monster strong enough to hold its own flick ripping off the alien baby monster was a mistake.

---------- All in all well worth the price of a rental, you wont be disappointed.

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*

Shark movies are all about the beach. Sharks need to attack bathers. That is where the fear lies. Everybody has gone swimming in the ocean and wondered whether a big honking shark was going to swim along and chew them up. This is the fear that shark movies need to exploit with all of their might. "Megalodon" takes the B-movie path to destruction. Submarines man. Just say no to submarines.

So this oil company wants to drill through the ocean floor. Can you guess what they release from the depths? That's right. A big bad Megalodon. The shark is upset. He wants to chow down on all of the dolts. Shark mayhem follows.

The problem with "Megalodon" can be summed up in one word: Submarines. There seems to be a new obsession with B-shark movie filmmakers. Submarines. I don't like it. They keep sticking idiots in submarines and having the shark attack them. Viewers know what it's like to swim in the ocean. They know squat about being in a submarine. The sub gives the filmmakers a chance to keep their special effects purely CGI. It's a cheap move that's making these shark flicks boring and repetitive. "Megalodon" is pretty standard stuff. Not too terrible but typical ho-hum B-shark madness. Someday there will be a big budget Megalodon movie. I'm waiting for that day. Maybe you should too.

I just saw this movie last night. I bought it for 3 euros on DVD so you can't go wrong there. The reason I bought it is simple: I like movies about sharks and there are only a few about the Meg(alodon). Too few, but I heard that Jan de Bont wants to film the book Meg (great book) so lets hope that will happen. About this film: You get what you expect: A cheap-looking, low-budget (horror?)film. It takes about 45 minutes before we get to see the shark, so until then the viewer is bored with mediocre acting, simple character- and story building and cheap SE. The thing that bothered me the most were the computer generated effects. I hate that sooooo much and this whole movie comes from the computer: The snow, the helicopter, the oil rig and the shark. I understand that the budget was low but a computer isn't the solution. The other thing was that there were only a few actors in the movie: Should I believe that a handful of people operate a huge oil platform? Yeah right! The movie is about a shark, but the shark isn't convincing either. It looks good standing stil, but the way it moves, swims attacks etc etc isn't very good. And the climax...You almost have to see it to believe: It left me with unbelief...so dumb and simple.

It's a short movie (1 hr 12) minutes, the sound was horrible (DTS!), full screen, but what killed the movie were the computer effects....so not worth your time or money.

I really hate ripping up low budget movies because that is the business I am in and I would hate for someone to do it to me. I'll say something positive first and then move on. THIS IS THE BEST SHOT ON VIDEO SHARK MOVE I HAVE EVER SCENE!!! With that being said lets go to the breakdown: This entire movie was shot in a studio on high quality video. The sets are so and so and the acting is also so and so. There is no nudity even though we were all expecting to see some from one of the two lead female actors. Even though this movie takes place on the largest oil platform in the world there is a surprising lack of background actors. This is summed up at a dinner table scene where the multi billionaire owner of the oilrig tells the reporters visiting that they are so automated that they only need 24 people to run the entire platform. Even with that I don't think we see 24 people the entire movie. Couldn't they have done the old Beastmaster trick of having extras walk back and forth in front of the camera during some scenes? It's a move folks. Lets at least try to fake it. The movie is complimented heavily with CGI some of which is good (But that's the exception) but the sheer amount of it starts to take its toll. The oilrig is CGI; the helicopter at the beginning is CGI; All the underwater scenes are CGI; The shark is CGI; The snow outside on the ice flow is CGI; Many of the interior sets are either CGI or enhanced with CGI; The yacht at the end of the move is CGI; with all this couldn't we at least add some CGI actors??? With everything going against it there were some times when I was a little interested in the movie and wondered where it would go, but in the end I found myself just trying to guess which actors would die and how. I'll give it one star because it at least kept my attention long enough to finish the thing. I'm mainly disappointed because there was obviously some money involved in this move and even with all that, and some great computer talent, they couldn't save it in the end. Its called writing folks. Take a class. MKB

Despite what others think, this film is one of the better shark movies in years, it has a good developing storyline, and a couple of likable characters, and at least the megalodon doesn't consist of discovery channel stock footage, like in that other pile of junk called shark attack 3, the film's CGI is acceptable and the cast does a great job with their performances, the storyline is slow moving but not boring in the slightest.

Final verdict, its a decent shark movie with great CGI effects, great storyline and a great cast, you won't be disappointed.

7 out of 10.

If you plan to watch this movie hoping to see another good action-thriller movie, with bad shark attacking movie, just forget this one: bad acting, bad story, awful FX. It has nothing but a good name. I was hoping to see another Deep Blue Sea-like movie, only with greater shark and better feeling. Well I'm very disappointed. I tried to watch the entire movie, but after 15 minutes I've started to fast-forward the movie and watch only the key scenes. Moreover the famous Megalodon, is poorly designed and animated. The outdoor scenes seems to be computer-rendered and the overall feeling of the movie compares with the HBO made movies. Bottom line: if you want to see a shark movie watch again Deep Blue Sea - You'll be more satisfied.

Megadolon is more a mediocre movie than a terrible one. It is also at least better than the Shark Attack movies(then again almost anything is), now those are examples of terrible movies. There are things to like, the acting is decent especially from Mark Sheppard, there are some nice underwater sequences, there is one cool attack scene and much of the CGI is not bad(the helicopter crash agreed was an exception), not great but could have been worse. Also the movie doesn't fall into the dull category, the pace is quite brisk and there are glimpses of great entertainment. Megadolon is let down by a number of things. The standard of the CGI was better than expected, but there could have been much less of it at the same time. The editing has times where it's hurried and others where it's sloppy, the dialogue at best is a load of exposition and cornball and the characters are shallow and development is next to nil. The story is not badly paced, but it is very predictable and the suspense and horror is severely lacking(they're exchanged with unintentional comedy, some of which is funny but others are frustrating), and the repetitive attack scenes and anticlimactic and quite ridiculous ending hinder it further. The shark is a very mixed bag design wise, there are times where it has a very menacing great white shark look but there are other times where it is like an over-sized plastic toy you'd find in the bathroom(coming from someone who used to have one, it could sing too!). The lack of personality is a big problem, there was definitely a big effort to make it authentic but generally it needed to be more fearsome and have more variety in movement and how it reacted to things. Overall, mediocre but did have its merits. 4/10 Bethany Cox

This is simply one of the worst movies I have ever seen. This is not a B movie series, this is a Z movie. Lousy actors interaction, lousy CGI (final fantasy, where are you), and the more than predictable ending takes out any interest on the movie. The low budget shouldn't serve as an excuse to produce low quality movies. If you don't have enough money to build a sky scraper, you don't save on the concrete and all the other building materials. You just don't build it. I tried to give this movie a -10 vote but IMDb system only allows rates between 1 and 10. Let this be a warning to you. Just don't waste your time watching this movie.

Okay if you look at this film for a fine polished movie then you are going to be sadly mistaken. This movie is 'b' movie, and taken in that scale, not a bad one to boot. Yes at time the acting can be a tad annoying and wooden. And the special effects can rather lame. But there is a story line there, and I think is this is redone as a modern film with a good amount of money for the special effects and a tidy up of the script, you would have a cracking little movie. Because at the moment the film is a diamond in the rough, I would advise you watch it, just to see what I mean.

You get a feel for some of the people within the movie itself, more so then some of the newer films.

All in all I would give it 6 out of 10, as a middle of the road type of film, take your brain out of gear sit back and watch.....

EDIT 11/08/2013

Watching the film again the other day, I thought about the book MEG with is a cracking title by Steve Alten. This film if it were given a remake with a good budget and a rewrite, keeping some of the story line, but expanding it passed the events on the oil rig, I think you could have a fair movie. The storyline on this as I said before is a tad flimsy, and the oh so special effects, but you start to get a feel for some of the characters, which should be expanded.

If you did all of this, then you should have a movie to watch and play at the movies.

Will it happen,, I don't think so, which is a shame

This better-than-average effort reminds me of those old 50s style B movie sci-fi monster flicks because there's a well-developed and interesting story with good acting, that has a gradual build to the eventual release and attack of the Megalodon. Not boring in the least while it builds to the climax, except perhaps for those viewers whose attention span is short or who have been weened on horror flicks that are long on mayhem and short on plot. I consider this a valiant effort, with it's only weakness being the limited, but well-done, CGI effects. Overall, it has the look of a larger budget and the cast of unknowns took their work seriously.

Definitely one of the worst I've ever seen!! When my cousin called me up to let me know that Megalodon was on TV, I immediately performed an acrobatic run towards the TV room, not knowing that it was going to turn into a total disaster...

I just adore sharks, so I love shark movies (even if they're not very good) but this was just total and utter waste of time!

Where to begin? The thing that irritated me the most was the rapid movements of Meg. A Megalodon can't move that fast. He should be slow and heavy. But he was wagging his tail like a little fish! How could you dare make a fool out of the coolest fish ever?!

The acting, the story building and the ending were way below average.

*Spoiler*

The guy disappeared after the explosion. Not a single part of his ship could be seen in the crystal clear water after his completely pointless suicide mission, I mean he could have got away easily.

And the Meg, broken into two, bleeding like a broken jar of strawberry jam. Ahh, a very very bad scene.

The only nice thing about the movie was the final scene where we see the Meg's silhouette under the boat.

*spoiler*

Overall it was an awful movie with no real shots (all done in computer), no good actors and no interesting or thrilling scenes. So don't even think about watching it.You'll just waste your time.

Watching this movie is challenging… I mean it challenges your patience, even your ego, because the makers offend human intelligence with the so- predictable script. The CGI are made to show themselves as CGI, and not to create a setting or a specific background. Low budget shows the shark as a poor victim of some fish-tank. Low mobility of the monster, lesser thrilling moments than any other horror movies (I totally dislike them), the whole movie looks like a project of a junior student in cinematography studies. Don't watch it, it's not even a B category! I should, though, pay my respect to the actors, that didn't suck, even though the directing, the images and the script were totally under any level of tolerance. So, I salute them and I wish them much better movies to play in. 3/10 (5/10 for the CGI, 7/10 for the actors, 1/10 script, 2/10 editing, 2/10 director, 1/10 music- bad plagiarism of "Jaws" theme)

Usually shark movies are fairly horrible, much like most zombie movies. And "Megalodon" is not really an exception from the standards of shark movies. It has everything you expect it would; fake shark and bad CGI effects. Check and check.

The story in "Megalodon" is about an oil drilling company which has built a massive rig which will revolutionize the oil drilling business. Being capable of drilling at depths which are previously unreachable, then they invoke the anger of environmentalists. Whilst drilling at over 5000 feet, they find a massive subterranean underwater cave which has a myriad of previously undiscovered aquatic creatures. But living in the cave is a massive Carcharodon megalodon.

While the story is straight forward and fairly generic for a movie of this genre, then the movie actually turned out to be semi-alright, in terms of being watchable and providing some entertainment for the audience. However, it just was bludgeoned to death by horrible CGI effects and fairly bad acting.

The concept idea for the drilling rig was quite good, and they managed to show it in a fairly adequate manner, although the CGI effects could have been better. And the combination of CGI effects and real props did work out well enough in favor of the movie.

While on the topic of effects, then I will admit that the luminescent aquatic creature designs were really impressive and looked really good on the screen. So thumbs up to the CGI special effects team on this achievement.

"Megalodon" has no one familiar on the cast list, and I can't really claim that people were doing great jobs with their given roles and characters. Now, whether this was the fault of the restrictive script or the talents (or lack thereof) of the actors, I do not know.

"Megalodon" is not an impressive movie in any way, and it is the type of movie that you watch once and laugh about it, then never put it back in your movie player again. For a shark movie, then this movie was lacking action, shark attacks and the sense of fear, that we saw in "Jaws", for example.

At only an hour and a half, it's not a bad little flick. The acting is satisfying, there's a few good one-liners, the visual effects (all CGI, and well done considering the tiny team that did them) aren't distracting enough to detract from things, and the story was plotted and played out decently. Obviously could have been more with a bigger budget, but that's a truism for all indie productions. The small handful of makeup effects were especially well done.

The only nitpick I have is with the sound mix. In some places the dialoge can be difficult to make out, but nothing a quick rewind-replay and a closer listen won't clear up.

6 1/2 or 7 out of 10, considering it does better than some Hollywood efforts (Deep Blue Sea, anybody?).

I really enjoy B Movies so I decided to watch 'Megalodon' on an obscure Cable Channel, merely down to it's title, I wasn't expecting a lot & my Expectations were rock bottom as it was, I thought it might be Trashy but Watchable, like the Sci-Fi Channel productions, or something in the vein of 'Shark Attack'.... Nothing could prepare me for this virtually unwatchable pile of steaming crap.

It's set on a oil rig supposedly staffed by a mere 22 people....if you thought that wasn't many....actually in this entire movie you only see SIX of them throughout (probably as the budget only covered half a dozen 'actors' at $500 a pop) The acting was actually worse than I expected, The 'Actors' here was so awful they wouldn't even make it as bit players in a Steven Segal Movie... but I Don't mind bad acting as long as it's action filled....erm... this isn't.......NOTHING HAPPENS, It's all filmed in a broom cupboard of about 8 square feet.

There is No Tension & No Action - I was bored out of my mind while watching, but persevered To the end, so I could save others from this dreadful fate by writing this review.

Everything in this movie is fake, from the oil rig, to the snow, to the helicopter and and even the boat at the end (which does look like the kind of boats kids push in the city lake near where I live) and also obviously the shark using the worst possible computer generated effects.

I would be amazed if more than a $100k was spent on this dire & painful mess.

1/2 * out of *****

Okay, 'Megalodon' is better then other films about other films such as 'Shark attack 3: Megalodon' and 'Shark Hunter'.

It opens up with a newscast where Maria Barrera is doing a report about shark attack and and oil stuff. With interviews from the head of it 'Peter Brazier' and 'Robert Amstrong' she ends up saying reporter 'christen Giddings' will be there for a week. The crew gets eaten to. The cgi and sound is great! I l o v e this m o v i-e it does not s u c k you h e a r that????? It i s a g r e a t s h a r k a t t a ck m o vi e! Watch it! I hope you will enjoy it as much as i did. It will be better then most shark attack films you will ever see. It goes next to Deep blue sea and shark attack 2!

The most expensive oil rig in the world, staffed by 22 people because it is mostly automatic, drills into the ocean floor and brings up a homicidal fish. Then further drilling causes a cavern to appear out of which comes the titular megalodon.. Unfortunately the film is half way through when the megalodon appears' Until then we get rather dull exposition about the oil rig and thin sketches of the characters, so that when some of them are killed one isn't moved or concerned.

Most of the film is CGI which looks more unreal than usual (the sea!) and the megalodon itself glides around with what appears to be a roguish grin. There's no reason for it to attack the oil rig apart from well it's a monster fish and that's what they do. There are some pretty luminescent jelly fish but apart from that the look of the film is dreary.

Am sure the actors are competent enough but they didn't have material to work with to make the characters believable. The music score wasn't too bad though so one extra star for that.

When The Meg was annouced in the cinema release, I thought: I know this one!

It was Megalodon for the year 2002

Good entertainment, if you are shark fan.

One thing that never ceases to irk me about many of the reviews on IMDb is the quick tendency by many of the reviewers to make uninformed blanket statements about any given aspect of a films production.

Judging by the generally somewhat primitive grammatical compositions of these would be 'critics', one could reasonably deduce however that most of said individuals are likely from a fairly young age range and thus perhaps forgivably inexperienced.

On the other hand, when such persons make idiotic statements (presumably only for the sake of being controversial) such as 'Marlon Brando was a crap actor' (yes, amazingly, some dejected wretch did write this, although not in relation to the film being reviewed obviously!) or such like then I just can't but help to become annoyed.

How does all this relate to the 2004 film Megalodon though you might well ask?

Well, frankly, it seems to me that all the derisory remarks about this being 'the worst film ever!' or else, 'the acting is the worst I've ever seen!' or 'The fx are the worst ever!' etc are but typical of the faecal rantings of the acerebral cretins I mentioned above. Interestingly, (and a sort of perverse hobby of mine) I find it very telling to view the other comments listed by such vehemently critical individuals. Sure enough and generally speaking when one sees the films they do bestow praise upon, well let's just say it only serves to reaffirm and solidify my theory that these are a young and none too knowledgeable audience!

Make no mistake, I'm not saying for one second that this film is a cinematic masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, however, despite a fair number of flaws, it is, if one approaches it in the correct frame of mind, a mildly enjoyable affair.

Let's dispel here the criticisms most often levelled at this film.

The acting: Admittedly there are one or two ropey performances (most notably from the female lead Leighanne Littrel) but overall the cast equates themselves very well considering the material they have to work with. Robin Sachs especially, lends a touch of class to proceedings and it's especially refreshing to note that the filmmakers didn't take the very obvious route of making his character a villain as such characters (an oil prospector in this instance) would very normally be portrayed. Also good in supporting roles are fellow British actor, Simon Sheppard (who bears an uncanny resemblance to pop singer Robbie Williams!!!) and Al Sapienza.

On to the special effects now and I can happily report again that overall, the digital effects are excellent (bar a number of instances i.e. the helicopter crash) considering the relatively small budget here. Again, I am completely baffled as to the comments from some obtuse reviewers who have slated the work here. Simply put, to said reviewers, if you want bad CGI effects, watch Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. The eponymous shark itself is very good especially (and better in fact than the CGI shark work in the far bigger budgeted Deep Blue Sea) although the animators admittedly failed utterly in conveying its propulsion movements which subsequently appear very unnatural and robotic looking.

As regards the negative points: There is sadly, as many reviewers have noted, far, far too little shark action here with the big fish not even putting in an appearance until the halfway mark. Not only that, but even when on screen, there is very little sustained tension and surprisingly, no particular jumpy scenes (a staple ingredient in shark flicks I always thought!)

Nonetheless, as shark films go, this is certainly well worth a look if you are a fan of said genre.

A typical low budget thriller/horror movie with a cast that doesn't bring much excitement to an experienced viewer, but then again not that bad either since none of them gave me the creeps.

The story itself is thin and we sort of jump straight into the story after very few introductions.

It's dark and windy most of the time to make sure the viewer can't point out the obvious 3D structures most of the movie is made out of.

But it is also slick and polished at the same time and nothing sort of fall into your eyes as irregular, it's just the feeling that this isn't how it would be looking in real life.

Some of the special effects are very nice such as the various fish types they have made for the caves and the whole thing could easily pass as real if I hadn't been into 3D artistry from before.

You get a few thrills from the action scenes and after watching it I felt like I hadn't wasted a good hour and a half, but then again I could have found something else to do also without loosing a good nights sleep over missing this film.

I give it a 5 for the special effects and the smoothness.

An underwater explosion occurs and a drilling system collapses uncovering a section of the ocean that contains prehistoric species, allowing the Carcharodon Megalodon to surface.

Like Shark Hunter (2001) Megalodon borrows elements from Steven Altens MEG novel. With recycled special effects shots and suffering from pacing issues, Megalodon tries it's best to be entertaining and with a welcomed serious in tone. Under Pat Corbitt's direction some of the low budget special effects are well-done, including some make-up effects however there's an abundance of unnecessary bad shots (the snowstorm to name one) which bring the film down, Megalodon may have benefited from much more being left on the cutting room floor.

Robin Sachs (Babylon 5) gives a good performance and notable talents are both Sheppard (Battlestar Galactica) and an unrecognisable Al Sapienza although limited by the script.

Lacking any real tension it's too ambitious for its own good, less may have been more. Not as rounded than Shark Hunter but just as flawed - still it's worth watching if you're a Megalodon fan.

I've seen many reviews stating this movie is boring, plain, or horrible. I beg to differ. Even though this movie isn't as exciting or intense as Deep Blue Blue (1999), I actually thought it had a lot of values to offer. The storyline was decent, yet a little slow. People were saying the CGI effects were crap. Are you kidding, the CGI sea animals, ocean, and oil rig were very impressive to me. The jellyfish sting that "Elliot" had on his stomach and back looked so real. The whole oil production idea in the movie was actually a good touch. The acting was pretty good, the only performance I thought was bad was Leighanne Littrell as "Christen Giddings". Besides the slow moving plot, I thought this is an incredibly interesting film. Its more Sci-Fi than horror which doesn't bother me.

So far, all attempts to make the extinct Megalodon into the next big monster (a la T-Rex from "Jurassic Park" or Bruce from "Jaws") have failed miserably. Steve Alten's bestseller "Meg" was followed up by an incredibly lame sequel. "Shark Attack III: Megalodon" was horrible, despite the Tom Cruise lookalike. There was a German effort a couple of years ago and the only bad thing that didn't appear in it was David Hasselhoff.

Of the efforts, "Megalodon" succeeds the most and that's stretching it. The premise, of course, follows the typical cliché of a small group of people inexplicably trapped in a confined area by a monster. It worked okay for "Deep Blue Sea" but not so much here. This time, oil rig workers and a TV crew accidentally unleash heretofore extinct fish from an underwater cavern.

What made "Deep Blue Sea" so good was the superior acting of Saffron Burrows, Samuel L. Jackson, Thomas Jane and Stellan Skaarsgard. We don't get much good acting in this film. Female lead Leighanne Littrell's only claim to fame is being married to Brian Littrell of the Backstreet Boys. Her acting is strictly two-dimensional and straight-out throwaway (if her role had suddenly been erased at the last moment, no one would have noticed because her character wasn't made essential to the movie's plot).

Anyway, reporter Christen Giddings (Littrell) and her dorky cameraman Jake (Fred Belford) go to the world's largest oil rig up in the Arctic (or someplace close enough to surround the rig with ice floes). There, we meet the rig owner Pete Brazier (Robin Sachs) and few of his workers (played by Mark Sheppard, Al Sapienza and Jennifer Sommerfield, to name a few).

The drill head penetrates an underwater cavern at 5000 feet, unleashing prehistoric fish and, eventually, a megalodon.

The only real acting is done by Sachs (best known for being Ethan Rayne on "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" and for hosting "Box Office America" on PBS for the last 10 years) and Sapienza (Philly Falzone on "Prison Break" and Mikey Palmice on "The Sopranos"). For some reason, Sommerfield gets the infamous "and" tag on her name in the credits, like she's a special guest star, although her resume shows nothing but one-time guest shots on TV shows. Whatever the case, she doesn't live up to the billing. Mostly, she goes to pieces and starts crying.

There is little in the way of thrills. The only real one is when the workers pull a prehistoric fish out of a suction hose and it attacks a rig worker a la "Leviathan." The creature effect of the fish is great (not CGI) and the fish really looks frightening. Alas, the worker who was attacked is sent off-screen a few minutes later for medical treatment and that storyline is lost.

Other mini plots are revealed and discarded. Sachs tells rig workers about an underwater methane leak and shows a glowing red spot in the sea near the rig. After that, we never hear of the methane leak again and the glow disappears. When the cavern opens, hundreds of prehistoric fish escape and very little is said about them or what kind of havoc they might be wreaking (I could imagine the producers already prepping a sequel). The other rig workers disappear after one scene and, save for a disembodied voice, are never heard from again.

Just like in "Jurassic Park," "Deep Blue Sea" and other copycats, a bad storm comes along so that the Coast Guard can't show up to save the day. The attempt to create a claustrophobic atmosphere fails glaringly.

The underwater scenes are CGI and they look very believable. There is a fantastic shot of the cavern, filled with luminescent fish. But, even CGI has its limits and you'll see that when the megalodon appears and attacks.

The shark attacks with all the aplomb of a bored movie star. Only one guy is eaten and that looks so fake I had no real desire to hit the rewind button. The shark attacks on the mini-subs are not convincing (indeed, the actors inside act more like they're getting ready to ride "Pirates of the Caribbean" at Disneyworld than they do reacting to being attacked by a 70-foot shark).

By the way, the movie is 91 minutes long. But, the shark scenes occur in the last 30 minutes. The shark attacks actually occur in the last 20 minutes, far too late to make this movie as good as it could have been.

I won't say who lives and who dies, but I will say the ending flat out sucked. A speech about environmentalism near the end comes out of nowhere.

The movie was directed by Pat Corbitt. You'll also notice that his company does the digital effects. At first, you might think he's a director who happens to own a CGI company. By the end of the film, you'll realize Pitts is a man with a CGI company who thought he could direct a movie.

It's not a terrible film. It's just lackluster and average, with a lot of wasted potential.