From our
friends at the Sci-Fi Channel and standby Sci-Fi Channel
feature film director Tibor Takacs we have 'Kraken: Tentacles
of the Deep'. Even though this thing is just a big CGI
squid and not a Kraken. And while Tibor is my guy, a
dude I can turn to churn out quality nonsense like
'Copperhead' or 'Ice Spiders'… I gotta say this isn't one of
my man's better efforts.
Little Ray's parents loved each a lot back in 1982, as we see
them enjoying a boat ride in the dead of night, with little
Ray in the cabin reading a book, until the giant squid got
'em! Ray saw this and he's is now scarred for life,
though the little boy playing little Ray looked more like he
just lost one of his Hot Wheels than both his parents to a
crazed sea monster.
Fast forward to the present day where we meet marine biologist
Dr. Nichole, as played by actress Victoria Pratt whose
abdominals are phenomenal. If one of your innate desires
in life is to see Victoria Pratt in a bikini-top, then we have
your movie right here. There were times when it seemed
as if it would be prudent for the young woman to cover up,
like at dinner or something, but that never happened.
There was even a scene in this movie where she was wearing a
shawl over her bikini top, but she remembered that was a no-no
in this movie for her character, and promptly took that mess
off. Outstanding. Anyway, Nichole is looking for
lost treasure on the high seas with horny youngsters Jenny
(Kristy Angus) and Michael (Cory Monteith), when the Kraken
shows up and eats the ship's captain.
Since this is the 'present day' and all, it's time to meet
Grown Up Ray (Charlie O'Connell) who has been waiting for just
this type of news so he can finally wreak revenge on Moby
Squid.
He heads up to wherever this movie takes place, charms Nichole
with his dimpled chin, and now he's on board helping her hunt
artifacts in the guise of taking down the big squid. But
love looks to be right around the corner.
Also we will meet Greek mobster Maxwell (Jack Scalia), who
also has a dimpled chin, but it's an eeevil dimpled chin, and
Maxwell has been tracking Dr. Nichole as she is close to
retrieving some precious artifacts that will put him back in
good graces with his mobster family. It's all kind of
silly.
Where is the squid during all this love play, mobster nonsense
and artifact hunting? Not doing much of anything
really. They do show a scene where some stupid kids are
out fishing and manage to get eaten by the squid, note that
one of these kids was played by genre favorite Christa
Campbell who is no kid but loved nonetheless by the FCU, but
in this movie the alleged Kraken was an afterthought to be
honest with you.
Eventually, the evil Greek mobsters, the artifact hunters and
the squid hunter will all meet in an artifact showdown.
The squid finally will show up as well and Ray can finally
have his revenge. How? If you said shooting it
with a machine gun, then you're one up on me.
The main problem with 'Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep' is that
the Kraken kind of sucks. It sucks in appearance, in
sucks in execution, it was intelligently inconsistent and its
mythology was awful. So we're told that the Kraken is
simply trying to protect the mythical Orb of Mythos or
whatever the hell that fake Faberge egg thingie that our
treasure hunters were trying to secure, but that doesn't
really explain why that asshole of a squid ate Ray's parents
or those idiot kids fishing at night. Of course the
squid itself looked like CGI ass, and then the worst part is
that it was barely even a co-star in this movie, right behind
Victoria Pratt's cleavage, Charlie O'Connell's chin and Jack
Scalia's hair. And by its inconsistent intelligence,
this squid is smart enough to cut the airline from scuba
diver, but it forgets it can't breathe out of water and
launches itself on a ship's deck. Dumb ass squid.
Now to Ms. Pratt's and Mr. O'Connell's credit, they did seem
to genuinely get along in this movie. Clearly movie
chemistry isn't easy to do, case in point we saw Ms. Pratt in
another Sci-Fi epic with Sean Patrick Flannery and had Ms.
Pratt dropped dead at any point in that movie, I'm thinking
Sean Patrick would've been okay with that. But Charlie
and Victoria really had genuine chemistry together. In
fact what Team Tibor Takacs probably should've done is
completely remove the squid, edit a few scenes together
differently and now they would've had a perfectly acceptable
Lifetime TV movie. Would that have made this movie
better? Of course it wouldn't have, but I wouldn't have
tuned in to the Lifetime channel to watch 'Love Over Troubled
Waters', as I was naturally drawn into watching 'Kraken:
Tentacles of the Deep'.
Not a bad love thriller melodrama, but a terrible monster
movie was 'Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep'.
