"Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep" opens with an exciting monster attack. A young married couple with a minor child is having a nice evening when a giant squid reaches out for them from the depths of the ocean. The creature quickly devours them and leaves their son behind.
Fast forward a few decades to the main plot. The adult son has spent his life tracking down giant octopus attacks. The monster is drawn to sitings of a certain treasure highly sought by collectors and rogues alike. He teams up with a team of scantily clad researchers to get his revenge or just get laid. You pick. The film drops the backstory between the hero and octopus in favor of a treasure seeker plot. Of course, some of the treasure doesn't stay at the bottom of the sea.
All of that sounds pleasant just like the film is to watch. Nothing here exceeds expectations beyond what is expected of a standard octopus movie. There are many scenes of the monster who is never said to be Kraken grabbing with its tentacles. The monster is represented with CGI as is most of the gore. For 2006, the effects are quite impressive. Anyone who watches modern films will disagree. Like many octopus films, we never get a full view of the creature. I usually find that annoying but not this time. The octopus is really secondary here. It works well to give the adventure movie an extra edge it wouldn't normally have with a script as by the numbers as this one is.
The most enjoyable part of the film are the underwater fight sequences. Several divers struggle over the treasure when the octopus is absent in hand to hand combat. My favorite part is the aquatic bolt to a guy's chest. After seeing Piranha 2 as part of this marathon, these weird, green scenes are not filmed as well as what James Cameron did in another low budget feature. You can't see the entire area in the shot. Each sequence is filled with light that shows you little of the surroundings. It looks like these were filmed in tank. Maybe Piranha 2 was filmed in one too. AT least that film had elaborate underwater sets for the divers to explore when searching for that film's treasure.
If you are in the middle of an aquatic monster movie marathon, Kraken is worth a watch. The film is available on Tubi and Vudu for streaming in the United States and on DVD in a very old Echobridge release. That was how I watched it and it was very pixelated due to compression on the disc.
Fast forward a few decades to the main plot. The adult son has spent his life tracking down giant octopus attacks. The monster is drawn to sitings of a certain treasure highly sought by collectors and rogues alike. He teams up with a team of scantily clad researchers to get his revenge or just get laid. You pick. The film drops the backstory between the hero and octopus in favor of a treasure seeker plot. Of course, some of the treasure doesn't stay at the bottom of the sea.
All of that sounds pleasant just like the film is to watch. Nothing here exceeds expectations beyond what is expected of a standard octopus movie. There are many scenes of the monster who is never said to be Kraken grabbing with its tentacles. The monster is represented with CGI as is most of the gore. For 2006, the effects are quite impressive. Anyone who watches modern films will disagree. Like many octopus films, we never get a full view of the creature. I usually find that annoying but not this time. The octopus is really secondary here. It works well to give the adventure movie an extra edge it wouldn't normally have with a script as by the numbers as this one is.
The most enjoyable part of the film are the underwater fight sequences. Several divers struggle over the treasure when the octopus is absent in hand to hand combat. My favorite part is the aquatic bolt to a guy's chest. After seeing Piranha 2 as part of this marathon, these weird, green scenes are not filmed as well as what James Cameron did in another low budget feature. You can't see the entire area in the shot. Each sequence is filled with light that shows you little of the surroundings. It looks like these were filmed in tank. Maybe Piranha 2 was filmed in one too. AT least that film had elaborate underwater sets for the divers to explore when searching for that film's treasure.
If you are in the middle of an aquatic monster movie marathon, Kraken is worth a watch. The film is available on Tubi and Vudu for streaming in the United States and on DVD in a very old Echobridge release. That was how I watched it and it was very pixelated due to compression on the disc.