User reviews

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.

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.

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

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I bought it mistaken it for shark attack 3 Megalodon. I watched it, snapped the DVD and threw it in the bin so that copy could not hurt anyone else.

I love love fun shark movies. This... This is bad. I appreciate movies being made.... This.... This is bad. It should not be viewed. The poster is cool though.

MEGALODON - retitled SHARKZILLA to tie it in to the more recent wave of zero-budget shark attack movies - is a low rent, low impact piece of nonsense in which the crew of a deep sea oil rig find themselves menaced by a massive prehistoric shark which has designs on the crew members. What could have been an eerie and claustrophobic underwater fear flick along the lines of LEVIATHAN soon turns into something much, much worse with very poor effects and questionable acting.

The TV movie cast to deliver straight performances but I'm not quite sure how they manage to keep straight faces given the nonsense going on here. The titular menace is animated by some ultra-poor CGI effects and the underwater action is devoid of creativity to say the least. Various "red shirt" characters are killed off screen, leading to our heroes trying to devise a way to combat the beast.

Unfortunately for much of the film very little happens and there's a distinct lack of menace which is a surprise given the plot line. I have to say that the film-makers did a very poor job here; given the budget and set-up I'm sure even I could have done a better job.

I have to say to everyone here that if you are out to find a terrifying movie, this is not for you at all. This movie, i would have thought, would come under the genre of Comedy. Everything and i mean absolutely everything in this movie was very very bad quality. But all this added to the comedy side of the film. I could not help but laugh during the shark attack scenes, all they had done was take cuttings of sharks obviously attacking seals, or sharks moving through the water. The MEGALODON shark was obviously footage of a Great White, just zoomed in on. The FX were so bad they were laughable throughout the film. The acting, so atrocious that it is funny and embarrassing for you at the same time. And for some reason the voices of the characters were not always in sync with the film and most of the actors had slight Mexican accents even when they were not Mexican. The continuity of this film is atrocious.

So when i say that this film is horrible, i mean it. By no means should you not view this movie, just do not watch it under the pretense that it will be scary. In fact go buy some popcorn, hire the movie out, get some friends around and get ready for non stop laughs. I honestly found this movie to be one of the funniest i have watched this year.

i thought that the director and the designers and the producer could of come up with something better then that it was awful. The computer graphics did nothing for the film and the producer really didn't think it through, i mean the scale of the shark was just ridiculous and most of the film was in computer graphics i think in total there was bout half an hour that wasn't done by computer.You could only just tell the shark was swimming in the water and it kept blinking while it was "swimming" so since when did fish start to blink, and it was poorly made, i mean come on its the 21st century all the technology there is these days the director and the producer could have made it much better that even the shark in jaws looked more real then the Megolodon did! my summary of the film is that it was rubbish and should of been scraped!

I sat down to watch this expecting a b movie, not great but one that was still entertaining - I didn't get that, I watched it with a friend of mine and we didn't talk to each other for half an hour after it finished simply because we were in shock at how bad it was.

Considering it was the most expensive oil rig ever you'd think they'd have paint in more colours than battleship grey, you'd think the dining room table for 24 people wouldn't be the size to seat 6, and you'd expect a couple of other actors floating here and there! Maybe if the script had of been half decent it would of stood a chance, but in one scene 2 minutes is wasted on the female lead asking where the toilet is!?!!!!

To be fair there are a couple of memorable lines, but the kind you remember because you can never understand how anyone ever thought they were good!

Basically if you wish to watch it, its an experience that you will never ever forget, but we actually felt ourselves getting stupider whilst watching it, it seriously drained all enthusiasm for life out of us!

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