THE MOVIE

Yes, that is Dinoshark - on Blu-Ray rental now.

Note: Dinoshark is only being released as a rental at this stage so look for it at your local video shop rather than at retail. That may change in future at which time we'll amend this review.

What is it that makes us want to see the most ridiculous creature films that can be imagined - Godzilla has been around in Japan since 1954, Frankenstein was written in 1818 before being turned into several films dating back to 1910, and Jar Jar Binks horrified audiences a decade ago. Well, OK, perhaps the latter interest was more to see a Star Wars film, but now we turn to prehistoric creatures with Roger Corman's DinoShark.

As global warming heats the earth’s surface an ancient beast, frozen in an arctic glacier, has thawed out…and it’s hungry! It makes its way to Mexico to snack on a steady buffet of bikini babes, lifeguards, horny tourists and more...

Actually there's not too many bikini babes... we're not sure about the lifeguards... and we're not sure how horny the tourists are either. Still it sounds good on paper, and there are plenty of semi-gory deaths in this film and, let's face it, that's what we've come to see.

Well she isn't going to be in Dinoshark 2!

It has to be said though that this is a pretty terrible movie, even for direct to TV. The acting across the board is pretty poor while the visual effects are restrained by the budget. Some of the continuity errors in this film defy belief. In fact you could play an entire drinking game spotting the mistakes - at one point Carol is driving in the car and talking on the mobile, not only is her mouth not moving in the rear vision mirror, but sunglasses miraculously appear and disappear. Then you get the factual errors... apparently New Zealand is north of Australia!

Having said that there are a few things to like as well. In any movie like this it's the way in which people are hunted and killed by the predator that makes it so interesting - and there are some great moments in this film with more than a few chuckles to be had along the way.

Produced for a budget of $US2 million for the SyFy TV Network in America DinoShark is very much a B-Grade movie but if you treat it as such, you may just have a good time with this film. Something that surprised were the visual effects - which some of the CG is a bit rough, some if it is actually decent given the budget.

This moment in Dinoshark is hilarious.

VIDEO
Despite the low-budget nature of this film, and the poor visual effects some of the images in this film, and the transfer, are quite solid indeed. The video is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio which will fill your HDTV, while the video has been encoded in AVC MPEG-4 codec. If anything we suspect the HD presentation of the film, while providing clarity and sharpness in some areas, also goes some way to show how average some of the CG effects are. Still, as an overall package the Blu-Ray would be far superior to the DVD version.

AUDIO
With a lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio track this movie sounds a lot better than we expected. Unfortunately which such a limited budget there are limitations to the sound design and music budget included, however it's a decent track with some surround sound and LFE use to keep your speakers working.

There are no other audio tracks on this disc and only one subtitle track on this disc - an English SDH track and it was accurate to the on-screen dialogue.

DinoShark is out now on Blu-Ray.

EXTRAS
As we suspected there aren't too many extras on this disc although the audio commentary is certainly worth your time.

Audio Commentary with Producers Roger Corman & Julie Corman and Director Kevin O'Neill: In terms of actual audio commentaries this is fairly decent and provides plenty of information about making a low- budget film with plenty of detail about the production, the post production and the actors.

Trailers (2:10/HD): Unsurprisingly this is the trailer for DinoShark. We certainly suggest you avoid watching this as it gives away many of the plot points, the main action sequences, and the deaths! Presented in HD with a poor Dolby Digital 2.0 audio.

OVERALL
Made for the Syfy channel in America DinoShark certainly feels like a made-for-TV movie with second-rate actors, average visual effects and poor dialogue. Having said that if you enjoy cheap creature/disaster movies then this may be of interest. DinoShark has it's moments, and may be worth a rental if B-Grade movies keep you happy.

Review By: Dave Warner

THE MOVIE	4/10
THE VIDEO	7/10
THE AUDIO	7/10
THE EXTRAS	3/10
OVERALL	5/10