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To say that the Roger Corman-produced Dinoshark is a bit of letdown is an understatement. While it is refreshing to know that Corman is back doing what he does best with B-movies, this one is simply a dull excursion into dangerously familiar shark-infested waters. Where Sharktopus played for laughs, Dinoshark seems content to play for thrills, yet those thrills don’t translate too well in light of the HD format. Never dark enough or funny enough, Dinoshark exists as a castaway – hopelessly adrift without reason – in the Jaws knockoff waters of B-movies.
Updating Corman’s own Up from the Depths storyline, Dinoshark indicates that the melting of the polar ice caps has released an archaic form of life – a massively-sized dinoshark – that eventually, some three years later, travels to Mexico to gobble up some tourists (in some pretty hysterical kill-shots) and taunt scientists with its steely-knived teeth and fancy fins. Starring Eric Balfour, Iva Hasperger, and Aaron Diaz, Dinoshark floats by on its chintzy effects and over-the-top acting and, with a meaty role for Roger Corman himself, it’s hard for B-movie lovers to pass up.
Unfortunately, the elements that could save this film from the boring version of itself would be all the content a made-for-television movie can’t have: gratuitous nudity and excessive violence. This thing is as anemic as British Literature. There really is no tension created for our “heroes” throughout the narrative. With little to take our minds off the fact that nothing is happening in between all the hysterical dinoshark attacks, the film sinks into a mindless rooting for the bad guys. The “heroes” only directive is to kill this dinoshark. Its body is essentially armor and that makes for some complications, but not anything a well-armed police squad can’t handle (or so it seems).
Directed by Kevin O’Neill, Dinoshark – originally made in 2010 - should keep those audience members in-tunes with B-movie mayhem in their seats and away from the fast-forward button on their remotes, but it certainly won’t satisfy the appetites of those wanting exploitation cinema. It’s a tad under-cooked in the effects department (which, for a B-movie, is certainly not a killer), but its actors are too sure of their game to get the hint that maybe they shouldn’t be trying so hard to sell the idea of a dinoshark and just enjoy the ride. Oscar gold won’t bait this fish.
It might not have the goods of classic Corman, but Dinoshark does deliver a pint-sized version of what went before in the land of B-movies.
MPAA Rating: This title has not been rated by the MPAA.
