Too much of everything

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

After watching "Tentacles" last night - and being absolutely miserable as a result of it, there's one fact that's more resoundingly obvious than ever, which is the irrefutable fact that JAWS sure did "inspire" a tidal wave of sea-beast themed movies - and from what I've seen virtually all of them are terrible movies (lame cash-ins). But yet some still manage to be pretty entertaining, however with Tentacles, that's not at all the case......Firstly lets start with a quick cast run-down: Peter Fonda, John Huston, Shelley Winters and Bo Hopkins, so the casting is actually quite good and it was filmed on location off the beautiful coastlines of southern California, but once it's all said and done who really cares, because when movies are this exquisitely boring there's little in the way of positivity to mention. Tentacles is so completely and utterly lame it's hard to know where to start but here goes, the films all-star cast is used ineffectively (particularly in the second half) and Bo Hopkins delivers a lame and listless performance and just listen to his dialog. Terrible writing, terrible delivery, period. The films plot and basic story-line is poorly thought out and ill-conceived and from a special effects stand-point it's clearly obvious that the film simply didn't have anything near good enough to Stop Hearts or Wet Pants. Nope not all, nothing like what you see in say "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" - 22 years earlier. No "effects-wizardry" to see here, just some crudely conceived, low-budget, under-water effects that have been spliced together and intercut with some live animal footage (once again taking notes out of JAWS' playbook); and on that note let it be known that simply showing an animal up-close does not, repeat, does not effectively project any grand sense of scale or "giant" size, nor does it fool the audience - not for a second. I think it's "The Night of the Lepus" that best illustrates that fact, which technically speaking is an even worse movie than Tentacles, but yet at the same time it's much more entertaining, if not entirely for the right reasons. Oh yeah, just to mention it, this film has a soundtrack that's utterly generic, sounds like stock film music to me; my guess is that they could hardly afford John Williams, in any case the films music sucks. If there's one aspect that Tentacles isn't completely incompetent in, it would have to be in terms of its cinematography, apart from a few questionable camera angles its photography is solid throughout.Let me end my rant and review with this warning: For those who were considering wasting their time watching this pathetic garbage-pile of a movie (which is literally nothing more than an ultra-lame cash-in that's playing off of JAWS' record-breaking success), I'd recommend that you watch something else, as Tentacles scores in the bottom 1% of all movies. Lets be brutally honest it offers absolutely nothing that's good.

Despite starring no less than three Oscar winners (John Huston, Henry Fonda and Shelley Winters), this Italian Jaws rip-off is still an almighty crap-fest, the name players, clearly uninspired by the derivative plot, going through the motions for an easy paycheck (Fonda even stumbles over his lines a couple of times, but soldiers on regardless).Director Ovidio G. Assonitis opens his film with the mysterious death of baby Billy, followed by the equally strange demise of peg-legged boat skipper Bill, both bodies stripped to the bone and sucked dry. Unperturbed by the fact that his name is very similar to both victims, oceanographer Will (Bo Hopkins) investigates, discovering that the culprit isn't someone with a hatred of people called William (and variations of), but rather a giant octopus that has been disturbed by tunnel construction beneath the sea bed.With zero tension or scares, but lots and lots in the way of dull chit chat, this is film-making at its most ham-fisted: what should have been a fun slice of B-movie nonsense is made interminably dull thanks to a dreary script, cruddy special effects, lifeless direction from Assonitis, and clumsy editing by Angelo Curi, who completely botches the film's two big scenes—an attack on a sailboat race and the climactic fight between the octopus and a pair of killer whales. A bizarre choice of score only adds to the overall effect of sheer ineptitude.2.5 out of 10, rounded up to 3 for the film's only spot of gore, a brief shot of a mangled corpse with its eye hanging out.

The acting, the dubbed English, the script...all lousy and somehow makes the movie watchable. There are lots of cameos and it's really fun to see these stars show up (obviously for a vacation in Italy) that make sense. But best of all...it appears they tortured some octopus by poking whale dolls at it.Beware: sort of spoiler ...Somehow it appears that cutting off an arm of an octopus kills it, But worst of all...an Octopus is attacked and there is no "ink" to be seen. They should have used ink and that would have blocked the obvious puppetry...or better yet...blocked the visuals altogether.

I'm used to Samuel Z. Arkhoff production being bad, low-budget, but usually bad and low budget in a good way. This, however, was not. It was just bad, as another review said, 3 big stars, all in supporting roles, and not a character to care about among the entire cast. I'm used to, and revel in, bad special effects, but this barely had effects, special or otherwise. The plot was virtually non-existent, but I think my favorite part was when they were discussing what to do, with the marine biologist, they switch back and forth between calling the thing and octopus and a squid. With the stars that were in it, it did have potential, not exactly sure what went wrong, but if you have an hour and a half to waste, listen to Yanni, it'll be most entertaining. By the way, I hate Yanni.