Kraken Kills!

05Apr08

Well Maureen touched on most of the highlights of this movie, but i figured i’d throw in my two cents, which is basically all this movie is worth. 

You know when a movie starts with a kid who survives a sea monster attack, the kid is going to grow up to go all Ahab on its ass. And so it begins.

First of all, in addition to the whole Huey Lewis connection, Huey also eerily reminds me of my friend Eric, who’s a stoner dude and i felt compelled to insert “dude” at the end of each of his lines. The only thing saving Huey was his affable smile. Sadly, though, foxy scientist chick was acting her heart out. At the very least, this woman deserves a chance at a bad UPN sitcom. Is UPN still even around anymore?

Still, the Kraken name is a complete misnomer, which irritated this former mythology geek to no end (shut it).  As Maureen has already spoiled for all of you, frantically flipping through your DVR trying to record this masterpiece, it’s a giant freaking squid. Which just made me think of tempura batter and a good dipping sauce. Kraken, for all of you flipping through your Bullfinch’s Mythology at home, is actually a Scandinavian sea monster, that is, indeed a squid. Kraken of Maureen’s memory is from Clash of the Titans, which replaces Cetus the Sea Serpent (not to be confused with Sigmund the Sea Monster) with a big roar-y thing with legs. Whatever.

 

To make matters worse, our anthropologist in a bikini continues to refer to the squid as Scylla, from the Odyssey, which was a multi-armed creature that lived in a cave that to’ up sailors. Kraken is not referred to even once. 

As usual, we cannot expect the folks at SciFi to get their mythology right. Dame Edith Hamilton is surely not picking up what SciFi is laying down.

Regardless, if you’ve been wondering what’s happened to Jack Scalia after he stopped appearing in Teen Beat Magazine back in 1983, here’s your answer. He’s starring in a low budget film desperately seeking an authentic Greek accent, and a fabled “greek opal” so that his crime family doesn’t off him at a toll booth a la poor Sonny Corleone.  However, i think that Nicole’s “theories” (which include bikinis and basic sonar) are hardly worth him facing down a squid, given that she obviously need schooling on what an opal actually looks like and let me tell you, it’s not a cobalt blue, egg-shaped tchotchke that you’d see on the mantle next to Aunt Doris’s egg cup collection.

See?

This is what an opal looks like.

 

Filed under: Creature Features   |