When a series of incidents strike New York harbor, a dive-team finds the problem to be caused by a massive octopus lost in the systems and tries to stop it before a city-wide celebration is threatened.
This was quite a decent creature feature that has a few things going for it. One of its good parts is the really impressive action scenes here which showcase the creature' rampage across the city which makes for quite an enjoyable time here that kicks off immediately in the opening attack on the tourists by the dock. There's also several other rather fun action scenes throughout here with a pretty exciting attack on a tugboat that features all sorts of frantic action as well as a rather exciting dream sequence that showcases the destruction of the Statue of Liberty and the rather chilling subway encounter that all come off nice off nicely. The centerpiece of it all is clearly the discovery dive of the creature which gets a lot of exciting features in, from the creepy antics of the underwater stalking and battling with the limbs just out of detection before switching over to the frantic attempts to try to stop it from getting away which is all kinds of fun that settles this one quite nicely. There's also quite a nice finale as well, which includes the underwater action as well as the subway antics with the stranded commuters and flooding water making for a fun way to end this with a touch of suspense in getting the kids to safety. The pace of these scenes that never makes this feel boring all makes this enough to hold off the flaws in this one. The biggest issue here is the fact that the creature looks pretty bad throughout here that never really gives it a realistic feel, as the methods do give themselves off rather easily. The flapping tentacles aren't so bad when they're in motion but look incredibly bad when done through CGI which is flat and lifeless, not including the stock-shots of the original that are distracting visually as well as content-wise for there's very little coherence from the stock-shot to the new footage. That's even before the use of the full- size puppet which looks completely ridiculous and is so completely obvious there's never any reason to believe it's a real being. Otherwise, the only other flaw here comes from the rather cliché series of plot-lines that run throughout here, from the doubting authorities and the about-to-retire officer being killed to the tepid romance from the two leads simple because they're around which is quite old and rather hard to get through seriously. These are what hold this one down.
Rated R: Violence, Adult Language, and scenes of children-in-jeopardy.
This was quite a decent creature feature that has a few things going for it. One of its good parts is the really impressive action scenes here which showcase the creature' rampage across the city which makes for quite an enjoyable time here that kicks off immediately in the opening attack on the tourists by the dock. There's also several other rather fun action scenes throughout here with a pretty exciting attack on a tugboat that features all sorts of frantic action as well as a rather exciting dream sequence that showcases the destruction of the Statue of Liberty and the rather chilling subway encounter that all come off nice off nicely. The centerpiece of it all is clearly the discovery dive of the creature which gets a lot of exciting features in, from the creepy antics of the underwater stalking and battling with the limbs just out of detection before switching over to the frantic attempts to try to stop it from getting away which is all kinds of fun that settles this one quite nicely. There's also quite a nice finale as well, which includes the underwater action as well as the subway antics with the stranded commuters and flooding water making for a fun way to end this with a touch of suspense in getting the kids to safety. The pace of these scenes that never makes this feel boring all makes this enough to hold off the flaws in this one. The biggest issue here is the fact that the creature looks pretty bad throughout here that never really gives it a realistic feel, as the methods do give themselves off rather easily. The flapping tentacles aren't so bad when they're in motion but look incredibly bad when done through CGI which is flat and lifeless, not including the stock-shots of the original that are distracting visually as well as content-wise for there's very little coherence from the stock-shot to the new footage. That's even before the use of the full- size puppet which looks completely ridiculous and is so completely obvious there's never any reason to believe it's a real being. Otherwise, the only other flaw here comes from the rather cliché series of plot-lines that run throughout here, from the doubting authorities and the about-to-retire officer being killed to the tepid romance from the two leads simple because they're around which is quite old and rather hard to get through seriously. These are what hold this one down.
Rated R: Violence, Adult Language, and scenes of children-in-jeopardy.