Beanbioca
As Good As It Gets
Deanna
There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
Isbel
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
GL84
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.
sam_aj_01
When i saw the first octopus movie it was a laugh see the cheesy acting and appalling effects. This film seemed to make up for the acting, but not the special effects. After Jaws and Piranha, sure, why not make a film about a killer octopus? The octopus invades the New York waters, where 2 police investigators try stopping the rampaging beast before the 4th of July.A pretty clean plot and descent happenings but the octopus was pretty much appalling, its nice to see they actually made it this time but it looked like a piece of plastic... Better on a big budget really, this film could have been a good watch. There's a continuous amount of errors where it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't research the way octopus live...Watch this if you like cheap DVD sequels, otherwise your better watching Jaws.
gothicgoblin1334
Oh wow, the character shares my name first name! Nick! This movie as bad as the first one, if not worse. Well, at least there's an actual octopus in this movie. An actual octopus that makes a better appearance in this film. By better, I mean, "Longer" the acting is pretty dry and it's hard to sit through. Just to let you know, when this ninety minute film ends not only are you freed from your couch but you get your ability to breathe back. Not only that, but you realise how stupid you are and then commit suicide, realising how horrible life is after watching this film. Really, it shows how desperate horror movies are today, more crap like this is being realised and where the hell have the real masters of horror been lately? This film should have been the final straw, so we can bring back cinematic geniuses in horror cinema, that could make some actually GOOD modern horror films, this movie bites.
aloep
*Mild Spoilers*When it's a sequel to something that you've probably never heard of and something that was probably awful to begin with, you know you're in trouble. You know you're in even more trouble when it's directed by a certain Yossi Wein, the master of cheap and crappy Eastern European filmed action pictures like U.S Seals, Disaster and the likes. I have been actively seeking out his pictures which are often so bad they're funny.The premise of a giant octopus terrorising New York Harbor isn't really something that can be easily accomplished in a direct to video movie as with the budgets Yossi Wein works with, he could never afford to shoot there let alone get a convincing giant octopus created, CGI or not. So, how exactly has Yossi managed to make a movie called "Octopus 2" set in New York involving a giant octopus?Badly, is the first word that comes into mind and I wasn't expecting anything else from Yossi but if you've never seen a movie of his, the low quality will amaze you. Firstly, instead of actually filming it in New York, this movie was filmed in and around Sofia, Bulgaria. In an attempt to convince us that it's New York we're seeing, between almost every scene it cuts to stock footage of Manhattan, the New York centre and boats going through the river. A bunch of underwater stock footage and stock footage from "Daylight" starring Sylvester Stallone is also used and in the end, a good 30% of the movie must consist of stock footage mostly of New York and it isn't fooling anything, as all of this leads to a bunch of continuity errors. For example, it will show footage of a boat going through the river then cut to new footage of a completely different boat back in Bulgaria. Also there are big conflicts in scenery. The area in which Octopus 2 is filmed is obviously in a river or lake located outside of Sofia as we can see hills and woodland in the background, as opposed to the built up area of New York Harbor. But we'll be treated to another 20 seconds of stock New York footage after seeing this! More and more stuff keeps popping up, such as horribly out of sync voice dubbing of local Bulgarian "actors" being used as filler and the ever obvious European cars.Now to the effects which are cheesy, cheesy, cheesy. You were probably wondering how they managed to fill in the giant octopus on a budget. Well, apparently not even filming it in Sofia, Bulgaria could spare them enough to create a convincing looking octopus as the giant squid in this is if anything, even worse than the mechanical shark in Jaws 4: The Revenge. It's a completely laughable rubber thing which we never see in full other than in some awful CGI and a small plastic model. The rubber object is quite obviously operated by hand off camera and gets wrapped around or hits it's victims from a bunch of different camera angles (obviously to hide the human operating it). It really is that bad. But it doesn't end there. Incredibly cheesy modelwork is used several times including a small model boat and an absolutely hilarious scene in which the lead has a nightmare about the "octopus" attacking a plastic toy of the statue of liberty while he is inside it. What this toy means to him, we will never know! When the octopus is broadcasted on the news, the news footage is absolutely laughable. We see a woman reporting it over a completely black background. Talk about cheap.The characters are also ridiculously unimaginative and clichéd such as the long time detective who witnesses this giant octopus and everyone else basically telling him he's insane and that they want to get on with celebrating the 4th of July and the drunk witness named "Mad Dog". None of the characters are likable or convincing at all and you don't remotely care for them. The acting level is really embarrassing and is even harder to take seriously when you see them in action around stock footage and laughable effects.With all the above taken in, this movie has no decent suspense, drama, thrills or action and like most Yossi Wein movies just comes across as a complete joke. Don't look at this expecting anything resembling a decent action/horror movie, this is a bad, bad movie but it's so bad and played so straight that it is unintentionally hilarious and is another Grade Z flick for those that enjoy awful cheese!
