Let's talk octopi. What do we know about them? Well, they have eight legs, they squirt ink when scared, they are thrown onto the ice at Red Wings hockey games, and (if I recall correctly from my meat eating days) are kind of bland and chewy, kind of like the EasyMac that I'm having for lunch today.None of these topics, however, are addressed in Octopus 2: River of Fear. Why would they be? None of them make for an entertaining movie. What does make for an entertaining movie is a combination of every cop cliche you can think of and then a healthy dose of massive cephalopod. It's like a recipe for an entertaining movie. Take 1 part buddy mystery, 1 part giant monster, and a pinch of love interest and you have yourself a movie.
The truth of the matter is that Octopus 2 reminded me a LOT of Shark Attack 3. In a good way. The big difference being that Shark Attack 3 was a bit wittier and made some attempt to explain the presence of the prehistoric beast. Octopus 2 makes no effort to explain anything. The presence of Chthulu is simply a given. He exists. That all there is to it. There is little effort put into explaining the why of the situation. Hell, there's not much effort put into much of the problem. In fact, at one point, our heroic police officer, and his contractually obligated love interest, the mayor's aide, resort to using perhaps the most mind boggling device to locate the octopus' garden...an electronic calendar with a couple of film cannisters attached to it. What's amazing about this is that is it so clearly a calender.
This is not the movie you're going to want to watch for the writing...or the effects...or the actors. No. In fact, I'm not sure WHY you would want to watch this, I'm only sure that you do. One of my friends told me that this is one of the 'five worst movies' she'd ever seen. I disagreed, arguing that she should probably watch more movies with me. However, it cannot be argued that this is a good movie. No, not by any means. What it is, is a movie with a giant monster attacking New York for no reason. And, to be honest, I'm okay with that. 6 massive tentacles ripping through the hull of your facility...however that works...out of 10.
