Die Fighting (2014)

When Die Fighting begins, the little red “REC” sign appears in the upper right corner of the screen, and I get a little nervous that this might be one of those “found footage” films, which some filmmakers still think are interesting. But it isn’t, at least not exactly, since the footage was made deliberately. It’s about a group of martial arts enthusiasts who want to break into Hollywood, and are forced into playing roles in someone’s odd idea of a movie. Die Fighting was written, edited and directed by Fabien Garcia, who also plays the lead role, a character named Fabien Garcia.

The first images are of a man watching news footage about a martial arts team called the Z Team winning some award and coming to Hollywood. This man is videotaping himself from behind, from a couple of angles, so what we get are wonderful shots of a person’s back and video monitors. On one of his screens we see a man who has apparently killed a few people and is upset about it. A title card then reads “24 Hours Earlier.”

Twenty-four hours earlier is this guy’s birthday party. It’s Fabien Garcia, leader of Z Team, and one of his friends is videotaping him. Someone is lurking outside, also videotaping him. Fabien opens a present with no name on it, and it turns out to be a camera slate, with “The Price Of Success” written on it. Fabien and the other members of Z Team have come to Hollywood to pursue their dream of making movies. But one member now says he’s going to move to China to take a job there, because he’s impatient for success, and because it’s difficult to get money to make a feature film. (Ha, the joke is on him, as this movie seems to have been made for only a few thousand dollars.) However, after Fabien’s wife is kidnaped, the team stays together to rescue her.

The mysterious villain at the monitors calls the Z Team and starts giving them instructions, warning that if they don’t do precisely what he wants, he will kill the girl. The first thing he has them do is put on special collars with tracking systems in them, and to throw away their cell phones. Now they’ll have other cell phones that he’s given them, which apparently can only call him. Not even 911? Is that possible? They don’t ever try calling for help, so who knows? Their first task is to attack an armored truck. Somehow the villain has control over a ton of street cameras, and we see the fight sequence from several angles. It’s remarkable that four unarmed guys, without any plan or strategy, are able to take out the guards, as well as policemen who happen by, and make off with the money.

So now they’re criminals themselves. And this is all to possibly save some girl whom we’ve seen for only a couple of minutes, a character that is about as interesting and dynamic and human as a sock left in a corner of a laundromat. I say let her die and get on with your lives. Well, the group splits up and Fabien is led to a church, where the priest is tied to a chair and utters that great line, “Why are you doing this?” (From now on, whenever you watch a movie, listen for that line. You’d be surprised just many movies have a character ask that question. This movie uses the line three times.)  The villain calls Fabien and tells him he’s the star of his new movie. So the villain is making the dreams of Z Team come true by videotaping them. Not only has he set up thousands of cameras, but has also hired a bunch of thugs to rough up a priest. Or is the priest an actor too? Fabien spots one of the cameras in the church, but soon there is an excellent fight sequence to distract us from the silly plot. Because, yes, as ridiculous as this movie is, the fights are actually quite good.

Meanwhile, the other three members of Z Team are at an abandoned hospital, and just when they’re considering going to the police, the police come to them. But instead of giving up and explaining the situation (they have the collars, the phones, and so on), and enlisting their help in rescuing the girl, they fight the SWAT team. It’s lucky the villain put hundreds of cameras in every single room and hallway of this hospital. No matter where the Z Team runs, he’s able to get multiple angles of them. How much did the villain spend on this? Wouldn’t it have been better for him to just hire the Z Team to do a real film? After all, they’re hungry for fame, and would have done the movie for very little money. Then the villain would have had more control over the environment, and gotten better shots. There’d be better wardrobe too. And a script. Imagine a script, and what wonders it could do for his movie. (At one point later on, he says “It’s in the script” to one of his hired thugs, but the thug is just as confused by this idea of there being a script as we are.) Hey, when the SWAT guys regain consciousness, won’t they be curious about all the cameras?

When the villain calls the team to congratulate them on escaping from the SWAT team, it sounds like he says “excape.” How can they take this guy seriously? The villain then has Fabien go to a martial arts class and fight the whole lot of them – teacher and students. Don’t these students wonder why there are suddenly tons of cameras all over the room, including some on the mat? Meanwhile the other three get into a gun battle (it’s a good thing one of them picked up three guns earlier). Again, how long until they say, “You know, that bland girl isn’t worth it”? Are they really going to kill people over this? The answer is yes. And one of Z Team is killed in the gun battle. But still the others go on with this guy’s game. Immediately the villain calls to console the other two: “Your friend will live forever through his performance in my film.” I think he’s greatly overestimating the appeal of his little independent straight-to-video masterpiece.

Toward the end, only Fabien and one other Z Team member are left, and the villain wants them to fight each other to the death. And guess what? At some point the villain kidnaped the other guy’s wife too. Apparently, they both married mousy little Asian girls. Isn’t it convenient that these are the two survivors? What if it had been the other two? Whom would he have kidnaped to make them fight? And when did he kidnap the other girl? It doesn’t really matter. At the end, there is a twist that sort of answers some questions, but which is unbelievable and ridiculous. But along the way, there are several completely enjoyable fight sequences. Just watch those and fast forward through the rest of the movie.

The Nasty Terrible T-Kid 170: Julius Cavero (2016)

I’d long had a theory that all graffiti was done by twelve-year-old girls. Because, honestly, who likes to write in big bubble letters? That’s right: twelve-year-old girls. But apparently some grown men also like big bubble letters. The Nasty Terrible T-Kid 170: Julius Cavero is documentary film following one such grown man, Julius Cavero. I knew very little about graffiti art before watching this film. And actually, I hesitate to call “art” something that mars or damages someone else’s property. That being said, I’ve seen some beautiful, vibrant paintings on the sides of buildings, paintings which somehow made an ugly section of city look friendlier, happier.

As the film opens, Julius in voice over, tries to distinguish the artists from those who are just looking for attention, the difference between art and simple tagging. The movie basically stays with him and his perspective. There is quite a bit of pseudo-philosophical musings on his part. He says things like: “The bottom line is with the past there is no future. Remember that. You have to have a past to have a future.” Did he just contradict himself there? Well, it’s clear this isn’t the brightest guy around. There is also a whole lot of bragging. “I’ll always be relevant,” he tells us. And he says, “We took this to a whole nother level.” By the way, everyone, “nother” is not a word. The word you’re looking for is “other.” Remember that.

The filmmaker does ask him why he chose spray paint as his method of self-expression, and he tells the story of being young and seeing two kids spray painting a train. And that moment had a strong impact on him. To the director’s credit, she also asks him, “What do you think about expressing yourself on other people’s property?” He tells her: “I never personally, like, spray painted on somebody’s car or I spray painted on somebody’s house. I did tag my name on mailboxes, trucks, anything commercial.” He says he only spray painted on public property “because I am the public.”

He does talk about joining a gang, and about leaving it. It’s a shame it took him getting shot to leave. And he tells us where the name T-Kid 170 comes from. And when he’s not bragging, he does have a few interesting things to say. Like about getting legitimate jobs. But this documentary is a bit messy, and it’s difficult to know just when certain things occurred. And a lot of shots just aren’t properly identified. For example, there is a shot of him with Brian Grazer, but no explanation of how this meeting came about, or when, or where. Plus, there is a lot of poor-quality old video. And for such a short film (it’s only 49 minutes), there is some pointless stuff, like several moments of him trying to pronounce “Champs-Élysées” while he’s in France.

There are brief snippets of interviews with other graffiti artists, but this isn’t any kind of in-depth documentary on the subject of graffiti. No other perspectives are really presented. For example, we don’t hear from the people who own the property that’s been vandalized. We don’t hear from the police. I thought it might also be interesting to hear from the guys whose job it is to clean up graffiti. And I wish the people who had hired Julius Cavero for legitimate jobs had been interviewed. This documentary is essentially a puff piece. At one point Julius actually says, “We was doing masterworks of art on subway cars.”  Wow. 

Shark Island (2012)

As you know, most shark movies are bad. Shark Island is bad even among other shark movies. It was originally titled Shark Week, and was released on DVD under that title too. Apparently it was also released as Shark Assault. But whatever they call it, this movie is a piece of crap.

At the beginning, a man throws a key into his pool and tells another man he has fifteen seconds. That second man is bound in chains, so apparently the first man means he has fifteen seconds to retrieve the key and unlock his chains. Now it’s not clear when those fifteen seconds start, because the second guy dawdles at the edge of the pool for a while. But let’s say the time starts the moment he gets in the water. Okay? When he has nine seconds left, the man says, “Twelve seconds” (not that the guy can hear him at the bottom of the pool anyway). Then when he has negative four seconds left, the man says, “Seven seconds.” And when he has negative twelve seconds, the man tells him, “Five seconds.” At negative twenty-one seconds, the man says, “Three.” When he says “One,” the guy triumphantly raises the key out of the water, but the first man says he’s too late, and releases a shark into the pool. No kidding, he was twenty-three seconds late. And I’m not sure how the man released the shark into the pool anyway. We don’t see him pull a lever or anything. Maybe the shark just knew that whenever the man said “One” that he should go into the pool and eat whoever happened to be in there. Maybe it’s a routine the man and the shark worked out ahead of time. Who knows? Anyway, that’s the opening scene of Shark Island.

Then several people from various parts of Los Angeles are kidnaped by two men and brought to this man’s swimming pool. The man then tells them, “None of you are here by chance.” No kidding. He then tells them they’re going to play a game, and he pushes one of the people into the pool. Oh yeah, I’ve played this game. There are a lot of sharks in the pool. This is a magic pool, by the way. From above, it looks like an average-size pool, not very big, but when you’re under the water, it’s huge. Look at all those sharks. The host’s girlfriend tells the other people that sharks are gods and “They should be revered.” That’s why she has them in her swimming pool. The man says the pool is a gateway to a path taking them to the other side of the island. Each day they’ll encounter a new type of shark and have to kill it. Why does he want these people to kill his girlfriend’s deities? They have an interesting relationship. Later, when they’re alone, he yells at her, “This is not a game!” In her defense, it is difficult to know just what constitutes a game for this guy.

The people don’t bother to use the key to unlock their chains until the next day. Not too bright, these folks. Nor do they try to figure out the situation until the next day, and when they do, they discover that their host is some kind of drug trafficker, and they have each had a hand somehow in the death of the guy’s son. Rather than go back and kill him and his girlfriend, this group wanders around the island, where apparently there are cameras attached to every tree and rock and blade of grass, because the drug trafficker is able to watch them and hear them wherever they are. They are somehow aware of the cameras, though they don’t think to smash them, and that might be because we never actually see any cameras.

This is yet one more movie where the sharks growl. And watch out for the CG mine field! Apparently this man has cameras and speakers attached to the waves in the ocean too, for he’s able to communicate with the people while in they’re in the water. Amazingly, this man has control of the sharks in the ocean. This is a pretty elaborate revenge scenario, but he often looks quite bored while watching the people on his monitor. Yes, just one monitor. And I am quite bored watching him be quite bored watching them. But my third beer helps do the trick.

Hey, this movie was directed by the same guy that directed 2-Headed Shark Attack, 3 Headed Shark Attack and Mega Shark Vs. Kolossus. Wow! And guess what? This one is the worst of the bunch.

same movie (don't be fooled)

The Breaking Point (2014)

The Breaking Point is a crime drama about three guys who shoot a woman in a convenience store, the detectives who are investigating the murder, and a woman who is eager to be district attorney. It is a mess. It opens with the woman who wishes to be the next DA telling a friend that she is working on something special in order to get that job. He asks her about Assistant DA Thomas who is next in line, and she tells him, “I’ll give Thomas an offer than he cannot refuse.” Here are some other clichés from that first scene: “Everything worth having is worth fighting for,” “If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you,” and “Word on the street.” The whole script is like that. (Later we have lines like “It’s like taking candy from a baby” and “Let’s just say a little birdie told me.”) It’s pretty bad. It feels like a first draft. And we have to suffer through some awful and completely useless narration by a character named Shawn (played by Erik Grey).

Shawn, his brother Mike and his friend TJ enter a convenience store, and TJ decides to rob a woman in there, and ends up shooting and killing her. Another bullet injures Mike. Shawn, in his narration, tells us that this “set off a chain of events that we would all later regret.” (That’s not even true, by the way; it doesn’t seem that TJ regrets anything. And come to think of it, it doesn’t seem like Shawn or Mike regrets it either. None of them expresses any remorse. Neither Shawn nor Mike ever turns TJ in. But then again, the line is that they would regret the chain of events, not the actual murder. So whatever. Though after Mike is shot, he does say he should have stayed in school, so there’s that.)

The lighting is also a major problem in this film. The actors are often in shadow, and it doesn’t seem like it’s by choice, but rather by lack of proper lighting.  When Li Ling, the Asian cashier at the store, tells the detectives, “I no see face,” it doesn’t seem like she’s lying, like she’s saying that because she’s scared to testify. I couldn’t see his face either, due to poor lighting. And this is in a convenience store, for fuck’s sake.

The narrator introduces every character. “That’s Captain Harry Sawyer. He retired from the police department after thirty-two years. A real law and order type of dude.” Yes, that’s the kind of dialogue we have to listen to throughout the film. Ouch. And watch Harry’s insane reaction when he learns his wife has been killed. And one of the other cops tells him, “Everything happens for a reason.” I personally like to punch people who say that, but Harry doesn’t hit him. Soon Harry’s granddaughters arrive (cue the terrible emotional music – the score is yet one more major problem), and one of them says, “We’ll get through this together, the way Grandma would have wanted it.” Have I mentioned how bad the dialogue is? And they don’t get through this together anyway. After this scene, the granddaughters disappear.

This movie also has several pointless flashbacks. In one of them, we see the chick that wants to be DA as a child. One of her friends says, “Come on, girls, we need to start working on our realistic career aspirations.” Are you fucking kidding me? Another long, fruitless flashback involves an aborted oil change. The flashbacks become more and more risible. Check out the one after a little girl begs Harry, “Please don’t kill my mommy.” Oh, that reminds me: Harry of course starts investigating on his own, since he was a cop and it was his wife that was killed. But nothing ever comes of that. Nothing. That’s the way this movie is.

The movie keeps introducing people, and you wonder briefly if they might have anything to do with the plot, if perhaps they’ll help get it going. But in most cases, no, they don’t. And I should mention that these are all despicable losers, so who gives a shit what happens to any of them? Are we supposed to side with Shawn? After all, he provides the voice of the film. But why would we care about this guy? He is a thug. Sure, he didn’t pull the trigger, but he is an accessory to murder. And then in an effort to avoid jail, he commits another crime – he breaks into the store that night in order to steal the surveillance tapes. But he can’t find them. Do the cops have them? No, apparently no one has them. It’s another element that never pays off. Why didn’t the cops ask about the tapes when they arrived on the crime scene? I don’t think it’s that the detectives are lazy; I think it’s the writers who are lazy. Yes, writers. It took two people to write this script. Wow.

Out of nowhere there is a slow motion close-up shot of a girl’s ass as she walks away. This movie is amateur hour through and through. It seems like there was no storyboarding or planning of any kind. I mean, who are the main characters? What is the film’s point of view? What is it trying to say? This movie pretends to be about an innocent man wrongly accused of murder. On the DVD cover it says, “Sometimes the innocent have to go beyond… The Breaking Point.” But again, Shawn is far from being innocent.

After Shawn is arrested, he tells the detective, “I’ve seen tougher dudes than you in dresses round my way.” Well, let’s see them in this film! We’ve seen every other person in the neighborhood. Bring on the transvestites!

Suddenly the film jumps to ten months later and Shawn is on trial. But wait a minute. The Asian chick told the cops that three black men were involved. Did the cops ever look into the identities of the other two? What the hell? And the end is totally stupid. Shawn narrates the whole ending, explaining what happened. But who cares? Shawn and Mike, who were accessories to murder, are shown in a college classroom. Are we supposed to think that’s a good thing?

So, what’s good about this movie? In the middle of all this, there is a wonderful scene with two women named Bernadette and Yvette, who are questioned by the detectives. They are the only believable characters, and their scene is by far the most enjoyable. Bernadette is playing by Shellita Boxie, who turns in a really good performance. These two women are so good that it feels for a moment like we’re in a completely different movie, a better movie.

The Breaking Point was directed by James Hunter.

(Note: I posted a shorter version of this review on Pop Culture Beast.)

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)

I have been a Star Wars fan since 1977 (seeing the ad for Star Wars is my earliest memory), and collected the toys until the end of 2005. Yet I was not all that excited to see the new film, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, mainly because I detest Disney. But I finally saw it. I did enjoy parts of it. But I felt that the movie overall was unnecessary and rather pointless. Also, it seemed to basically want to redo much of the original trilogy, just with different characters (but without character development). A secret map is hidden in a droid, who then ends up in the desert. A young character with inherent force ability must leave the desert planet. We even get a variation of the cantina scene from A New Hope. (Note: As always, there are spoilers in this Good Things About Bad Movies review.)

One of the main weaknesses of Return Of The Jedi was the rehashing of the Death Star, and so I was seriously surprised that The Force Awakens decided to do it yet again. Not only that, but it also uses the whole going-down-to-the-planet-to-destroy-the-shield-generator plot point from Return Of The Jedi. It took a lot of work to accomplish that in Jedi (and yes, they had to get the help of the beloved Ewoks), but in this one everything is pretty easy. I was never anxious for any of the characters at any point in the movie.

Finn’s character is one that I find particularly questionable. I do love the idea of delving into the lives of stormtroopers, but it’s just not handled or developed all that well. He was a stormtrooper all his life, completely indoctrinated, yet he’s aware of Han Solo and other elements that I can’t believe stormtroopers would be taught. Also, he says he worked in sanitation. So why was he there on that raid to capture the map to Luke Skywalker’s location?

Why does that map even exist? Maybe that was explained and I just missed it, but seriously, who created the map, and to what purpose? And why was it divided into two pieces – one very large, and one small? And if R2-D2 had the main section of the map, why did he wait so long to offer it up? And why wouldn’t R2 have the complete map?

Back to Finn: Why did the First Order kidnap children and spend decades indoctrinating them only to make them work in sanitation anyway? And how is he able to use the lightsaber so well? And of course that leads us to Rey’s character. She has apparently never used the force, has had no training, and then suddenly is some kind of expert. What gives? How did she even get the idea that she could use the force to control the weak-minded stormtrooper in that one scene? And, outside of the whole force issue, what led her to rescue BB8 in the first place? Why did she care about a droid she had never seen before? (One more thing about Finn: the bloody handprint on his helmet is ridiculous. I know it’s there so that we can tell him apart from the other stormtroopers, but really, how did the blood get on that guy’s gloves in the first place? He still had his armor on, so wouldn’t the blood be under it?)

The main villain in this movie is lame. It’s a whiny, rebellious, nervous teenager who likes to dress in black and wear a mask. He reminds me of those assholes who take guns to their schools. Like all kids, he wants to distance himself from his parents. But in doing so, this little shit decides to be like his grandparent. He just needs a good spanking. And yet he (big spoiler here) is the one to dispatch one of the original trilogy’s main characters. So sad. So pathetic. (The real villain here is Disney.)

And actually the way the characters of Han, Leia and Luke are handled here is infuriating. After thirty years, Han is back to smuggling? And someone stole the Falcon from him? Come on! That’s fucking stupid. And Leia is back to leading the resistance? What’s going on with the New Republic? And Luke had trouble with his first group of students, and so gave up the whole idea of teaching Jedi? So he just figured, what, there would no longer be Jedi in the galaxy? That’s kind of a huge decision. Leia, Han, and Luke all basically gave up their lives because of one bratty kid? Again, give that little shit a spanking and move on.

I know this question is asked (and not answered) in the film, but seriously, how did that lightsaber end up in that box? The last we saw, it was falling out of Cloud City. And speaking of relics from the original trilogy which miraculously show up in this film, how did the bratty kid end up with Vader’s helmet? Years later, he went to Endor and found it? Had Luke buried it, or just left it smoldering? Did he make a map for that too? And why would the kid want it? And why does he talk to it? This kid is fucked up. He needs therapy.

But the Nazi scene where the crazy Hitler character addresses all the stormtroopers is maybe the worst scene in the film. When the stormtroopers all give the Nazi salute, I burst out laughing.  And again, what is going on with the New Republic? Where is its army? And this new Death Star is able to shoot its beam out across entire star systems and destroy several planets at once? So the entire New Republic was on three nearby planets? That’s so convenient. And unbelievable.

You know what else is unbelievable? The music isn’t good. There are no new memorable themes here. That might be the saddest and most surprising thing about this movie.

Like I said, I did enjoy chunks of this film (and I do really like BB8). But it’s really only enjoyable until you think about it for like three minutes. (By the way, there were like seven or eight trailers in front of this film, and none of them looked the least bit interesting. Is this the way movies are going? Who the fuck was asking for a sequel to Independence Day?)

              

Sand Sharks (2011)

As you’re probably aware, recent government bills lifting restrictions on sharks have allowed them to expand into new territory. They are no longer limited to the ocean. Sharks are everywhere these days – in lakes, in swamps, in the snow, in tornadoes – so it should surprise no one to find them in the sand. Sand Sharks stars Corin Nemec (whom you might recall from Raging Sharks), Brooke Hogan (whom you might recall from 2-Headed Shark Attack), Eric Scott Woods (whom you might recall from Avalanche Sharks), Gina Holden (whom you might also recall from Avalanche Sharks), and Vanessa Evigan (whom you won’t recall from Avalanche Sharks, though she did work on it in the visual effects department).

It opens with some guys riding dirt bikes on the sand. Now when riding dirt bikes one thing you’re not worried about is a shark attack. But if they had read the title on the DVD case, they’d know better. Jimmy Green (Corin Nemec) is a slightly shady guy with a plan to get the town back in shape. He wants to start a celebration, which he calls The Sandman Festival, to draw people to the town to help its economy. His father is the mayor, so he’s able to put his idea into motion. Meanwhile Sheriff John (Eric Scott Woods) and his deputy Brenda (Vanessa Evigan), who is also his sister, are investigating the deaths of the dirt biker riders. They decide to call in Dr. Powers, a shark expert. Instead, they get his daughter, Sandy Powers (Brooke Hogan), who apparently is also a shark expert. These things run in the family. Oddly, in 2-Headed Shark Attack, Brooke’s character also inherited her father’s knowledge and expertise, that time in welding. Go figure.

This movie lifts a lot of stuff from Jaws. There is a guy with a dorsal fin hat chasing a girl around on the beach, like the young prankster from Jaws. The sheriff then closes the beach, and when the merchants get angry, the mayor says it will be for “twenty-for hours only,” which is also in Jaws. And then we get Angus, a weird old fisherman who says he can catch the shark, but demands more money than what is being offered. In Jaws, Quint demands ten thousand dollars, and that’s probably what leads Angus to choose his amount, which is also ten thousand dollars. “For that, I’ll bring you the head,” he says. Sound familiar?

The sand shark eats a cable on the beach, which causes a power outage in town. Sneaky fish. But what’s good about this movie is that halfway through, the sand shark is killed. So the festival can go ahead as planned. But again, if they looked at the DVD case, they might notice that the title is Sand Sharks, not Sand Shark. Sandy Powers reminds the sheriff that this shark was a baby so the mother is likely out there looking for her child (because sharks are such good parents). And hey, are we getting a bit into Jaws: The Revenge territory here now?

Not many people show up for the festival, but Jimmy talks it up to the crowd anyway, saying it’s the best beach party ever. The few dozen people there react like he’s telling them the truth. And the camera man helps Jimmy by providing lots of close-ups to make it seem like more people are there. But we do see Jimmy’s human side when he tells Amanda off. Amanda’s death scene is great, by the way. And even better is Jimmy’s reaction, jumping from the sand onto the little step of his trailer.

There is also a seriously excellent moment when two men on the beach shout out in horror and fear, and the rest of the crowd hears it and shouts out in response, but in joy. I love that this film makes fun of stupid crowd mentality, those idiots who shout because others are shouting. The festival goers are all morons anyway, for when the sharks begin attacking, they run around in circles on the beach, rather than making a straight line out of there. And it turns out it’s not just the sand shark’s mother that shows up, but its whole family – siblings, aunts, cousins, perhaps even some neighbors.

This movie is actually a lot better than most of these shark movies. For one thing, it has a good sense of humor, at one point even mentioning Roger Corman and Dinoshark.  “Who?” Sheriff John asks. “Obviously you’re not a B movie fan,” Sandy Powers says. “Nope,” he agrees. Another thing is that the actors actually seem invested in their parts. Corin Nemec’s performance, for example, is good, as is Vanessa Evigan’s. And for CG, the sharks, for the most part, don’t look all that bad.

3 Headed Shark Attack (2015)

Just as the sequel to the remake of Ocean’s Eleven was titled Ocean’s Twelve, and the sequel to the film version of 21 Jump Street was titled 22 Jump Street, the sequel to 2-Headed Shark Attack is 3 Headed Shark Attack. And I’ll tell you right now, I’m looking forward to the sixth or seventh instalment of this series. Well, this three-headed shark is even more dangerous than its predecessor, as it goes right up onto the beach in search of snacks. Just when you thought it was safe to go near the water.

Maggie is a gung ho young intern arriving for her first day of work at an underwater research station studying pollution and its effects on marine life. Dr. Laura Thomas, a chick with amazing boobs, seems to be in charge (twenty minutes into the film, I glanced up at her face and was disappointed), along with Dr. Ted Nelson. Also arriving on this day is a small group of environmental activists, who are invited to work with the scientists. We learn that pollution is causing mutations in between twenty and twenty-five percent of specimens the facility is studying. I like that this movie has a nice environmental message: Don’t pollute, and we won’t have to worry about giant three-headed sharks.

This shark has some interesting abilities. Besides jumping onto shore for lunch, it’s able to somehow swim in water that’s only three feet deep without breaking the surface (perhaps it tucks that dorsal fin in), then leap twenty-five feet into the air and dive straight down into the shallow water and disappear. It’s kind of amazing.

It’s not long before the shark attacks the research station. This movie taps into one of my secret fears – being eaten by a shark while I’m seated on the toilet. Oh, I’m going to have nightmares for weeks. Well, the shark causes an explosion, and it looks like the only ones to make it out alive are Boobs, Ted Nelson, Maggie and the activists. Uh-oh, they are the heroes? Well, the activists’ boat is a good distance from shore. So the plan is for one guy to swim to the boat, start it, and drive it to shore, so everyone else can get in. But the first guy who reaches the boat can’t get it started. The second has trouble. The third, Alison (the cute one), just seems shaken. The fourth one doesn’t make it. Finally they get it started, but then immediately abandon their plan, saying the water is too shallow. So the last three have to swim to the boat anyway. Way to draw out a scene, folks. Boobs goes into the water to distract the shark, so that the other two can make it to the boat (though three have made it already without any such distraction). Boobs’ plan should work. I myself am distracted. And, unfortunately, it does work. Boobs is eaten, and I’m a little less interested in the movie. We still have Alison, who is cute but worthless. Anyway, they try to contact the coast guard, but instead reach Max Burns (Danny Trejo), who is out fishing with a couple of friends. They try to convince him to come help them, that they’re being chased by a giant three-headed shark.

But the shark, having already eaten Boobs, understandably loses interest in pursuing their boat, especially when it spies a party boat full of hot girls nearby. So actually Maggie, Ted and the remaining activists are safe. And hey, the shark eats trash on its way to the party boat. Nice. It’s cleaning the ocean, not only of bad actors but of beer cans. Speaking of bad actors, here comes Danny Trejo to the rescue.

Well, instead of using the opportunity of the shark being otherwise occupied to go to shore (which is really close, by the way), Maggie convinces the others they have to rescue the drunks on the party boat. She says that they have to do something because she just watched all her friends die. Wait a minute. She was an intern, and this was her first day. She hadn’t even met most of the people at that research station. How is she calling them her friends? Don’t you hate people who try to take others’ tragedies and somehow make it personal to them? Greg, one of the activists, gets in on it too: “We just watched all of our friends get eaten by that monster. All of them.” Well, one of his friends was eaten, but the others are on the boat. That’s assuming that he has no other friends anywhere in the world. Greg must just be caught up in the excitement. Later, at home, he’ll be able to give a more accurate assessment of what transpired.

Anyway, the shark is supposedly following the trail of trash from the party boat, but the trash is all beer cans, and everyone on the boat is drinking from plastic cups. Whoops! One guy on the party boat sees the three-headed shark and says, “That’s odd.” I agree. The shark then jumps right onto the party boat, eats some people, then swims away. But suddenly almost everyone is gone from the party boat. Where did they go? Did they run out of money for extras in the budget? Some of them appear again a little later.

By the way, the DVD box says, “Uncensored” and “Unrated,” but the word “shit” is missing at one point, having been cut, and at two other points the word “shoot” has clearly been substituted after the fact. The guy sees the shark coming right for him and says, “Aw, shoot.” Uncensored, my ass.

Well, there is a shot of one guy riding the shark, which is hilarious. It’s one of my favorite moments of the movie. So their plan had been to rescue the drunks, but they managed to only rescue three people from that party boat, while losing at least one of their own. Nice plan, Maggie. But Maggie isn’t done being an obnoxious and stupid little bitch. When told the boat would only last another twenty miles, she tells them to drive to an atoll that’s ten or fifteen miles ahead because it’s the only land they can reach. But even as she says this, we can see land on either side of the boat, and it’s quite close. But instead of pointing this out to Maggie, they follow her instructions and drive forward. These people are fucking idiots. And what is up with this series and atolls?

And why does Danny Trejo have all these big guns on his fishing boat? And there is suddenly something about the shark being able to grow more heads (preparing us for the next movie in the series, I assume).

Well, this atoll has badminton nets and park benches and so on. And it has a couple of boats, just like the atoll in the first film. So they split up, getting into the two boats. The shark, of course, chases one of the boats. And… have I mentioned how fucking stupid these people are? The people on the other boat yell “Shark!” to Alison, but she’s like, “What are they shouting?” Silly bitch, what else could they possibly be shouting? What is the one thing you’ve been trying to get away from for the last ninety minutes? Alison is cute, but when the shark finally eats her, I’m glad. You know, there is land everywhere you look in this film. These idiots could have been safe at any time they desired. But instead they just keep getting on boats. At the end of the day, they’re just too stupid to live.