A more emotionally satisfying battle than Batman v Superman. Also more correctly punctuated.

What it’s about

Two enormous prehistoric monsters are freed from their icy prisons (because something something global warming military testing something something). Will a ragtag team of intrepid scientists be able to stop them from taking over the world? Or at least the parts of the world that are right up on the coast?

Why it’s trash

• The movie is produced by The Asylum. The company has been known in the past for its “mockbusters” which are low-budget takes on big-budget action movies that are frequently just as forgettable—Snakes on a Train came out the same year as Snakes on a Plane, San Andreas Quake is their version of the Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson-led San Andreas, Paranormal Entity is . . . well, you get it. (They’re also responsible for Transmorphers: Fall of Man, which is in its own right a remarkable feat of garbage for sounding like it’s going to be a ripoff of Transformers when it’s actually a ripoff of Terminator: Salvation, so nice job subverting expectations there.) At this point, though, they might be more famous for bringing back the creature-feature as a basic-cable Satuday night staple. You might not be familiar with Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lampreys or Supercroc, but you’ve probably heard of a little film called Sharknado, even if only in the context of the decline of Western civilization. Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus comes from their pre-Sharknado days. (It’s worth pointing out that The Asylum also produces films like Sex Pot and Barely Legal, but the sex comedy genre isn’t my thing, so I can’t speak to those. I can say with confidence that Transmorphers: Fall of Man was fucking awful.)
• The big names in Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus are Deborah “Don’t Call Her Debbie” Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas (who I always refer to as “TV’s Renegade” the same way Xander Crews refers to Fred Dryer as “TV’s Hunter”).
• It’s about a mega shark and a giant octopus fighting both humanity and each other.
• It contains this scene.

Why it’s treasure

• The main character is a lady scientist who we actually see science-ing, even if the science is strictly pseudo- (as is par for the course in a movie from The Asylum).
• Lady scientist has an old guy mentor who never hits on her or makes sexually suggestive comments toward her.
• She doesn’t end up fucking Lorenzo Lamas like I assumed she would based on the fact that they’re the only semi-famous actors in the movie.
• Instead, she gets together with Asian Scientist Guy—Dr. Shimada! The romantic lead of the movie is an Asian dude! That basically never happens.
• Dr. Shimada doesn’t know martial arts. (He does fulfill the stereotype of Super Smart Asian, but since every character in this movie is either a scientist or a government agent, I’ll give it a pass.)
• There aren’t any gratuitous sex scenes (unlike the threesome scene in another aquatic monster flick from The Asylum, Two-Headed Shark Attack), and nobody gets eaten by the mega shark or the giant octopus just because they were getting it on in the wrong place at the wrong time. That puts it above 90% of horror flicks out there.
• It contains this scene.

Why you might like it

Look, you already know whether you’re going to be in the bag for a movie called Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. If it’s not your thing, none of the points in the pro column are going to sway you. But if you enjoy B-movie ridiculousness but are usually put off by the intense racism/sexism/etc., this movie does a lot better at avoiding those issues than most in the genre. And if you saw Sharknado but were put off by its frequent self-referential winks, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus also contains a lot less of that.