Gibson & Lamas Meet The Monsters

You've been hearing about it for a few weeks now. But is it any good?

How could it be, really?

MEGA SHARK VS GIANT OCTOPUS became The Asylum’s best-known, if not exactly best, film to date, after its trailer made the Internet rounds as a viral video for all to mock.

Former teen pop star and Playboy model Debbie Gibson ("Lost in Your Eyes") gets top billing as a lisping marine biologist, the maverick kind who hijacks a mini-sub, so she can check out some whales. A giant octopus attacks a Japanese oil rig. A mega shark leaps a few miles into the sky to chomp a 747. Holy crap.

The odious Lorenzo Lamas (TV's RENEGADE) appears as a scowling military man with a ponytail who thinks the idea of a giant octopus is as ridiculous as we do. Perhaps the only aspect of the film sillier is an out-of-left-field broom-closet tryst between Debbie and Japanese scientist Vic Chao that gives them the big clue to defeat the monsters. Which they don’t really do, because The Asylum has to keep the ending open for a sequel. Maybe MEGA SHARK VS GIANT OCTOPUS VS BIG ASS FROG, I don’t know.

Stock footage swiped from The Asylum’s 30,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA results in cramped sets and continuity errors. All three submarines use the same set, and the quickie CGI effects are the pits. All actors are bad, but the inexperienced Gibson, surprisingly (and bully for her for not getting a nose job), comes off looking best. Producer David Michael Latt owns The Asylum and has also directed some of its pictures.c