Blue Demon (2004)

Deep blue sea meets die hard

The following film for which this review is rated PG-13 for some action seqeunce, violence, and occasional brief strong language.
What do you get when you cross die hard with Jaws. You get the 2005 made for television now on DVD movie Blue Demon. When a top secret counter terrorist project Blue Demon is sabotaged by some one connected to the project. It is up to two scientific researchers on the project Maria Played by Debee Pfeiffer and her ex husband Nathan Randall Batnkoff to stop six governmentally enhanced great whites. From turning the local bathers into shark burritos. Can they shop these six terrors and stop the diabolical mastermind who has stolen a Russian case bomb before it is delivered shark express to it's designated location. Find out in the thrilling action packed conclusion. January 5, 2008

Genetically engineered sharks that...

swim so slowly almost EVERYONE they attack has no problem getting away from them. The scientist warns (at the beginning and end of the film) that they did something terrible in creating these sharks. I agree. If such sharks ever bred, the world's shark population would starve, as these things were completely unable to catch anything. (If you can't catch a floundering human, how are you supposed to catch a creature adapted to swimming.) July 26, 2007

An effective diversion with part time comic affect

I think the reviews on this film are the least representative batch I've ever seen on Amazon. "Blue Demon" is a tongue in cheek film about a military research program that genetically alters sharks so they fight and defeat terrorists. If you can't see the humor in that premise, something's wrong.

As you can imagine -- and, if you've been reading along, you see -- that things vary quite a bit from this premise right away. Something goes badly wrong with the sharks' computer program, they break out of their containment hatch, swim around in California waterways, eat some people, and more.

The film has no real stars; DeDee Pfeiffer, a ringer for Cameron Diaz that has appeared in "CSI New York", is the main charcater with Randall Batinkoff, who plays her husband and fellow researcher; "Seinfeld" short person star Danny Woodburn, who plays their boss; and veteran character actor Jeff Fahey, who plays the military general behind the doublecross. None of these actors enhanced their careers with this movie but I'm sure they'd all agree it was fun to make.

That's becuase it's fun to watch. I agree with the other critics that say it's inane; that's what makes it fun. And while the computer-generated sharks would never be confused with real animals...well, this is a movie, right? Did someone out there confuse this for a documentary? The sharks aren't any worse than other computer-generated fish I've seen in other recent films.

My capsule summary is this: don't go into this thinking you're going to see one of the great action-horror films of recent years. But you can expect to be entertained by a fast moving flick that has a lot of humor and whose actors participate in the tongue in cheek format right from the first scene. April 17, 2007

God bless Jeff Fahey

Okay, this was a terrible movie done on a very small budget. The plot was stupid, the acting bad, and the special effects were anything but special.. Could easily be a movie that gets one star with a disclaimer that it only gets one star because we can't give it less. HOWEVER...Jeff Fahey plays a "patriotic" American general, and he is so over the top, so into hamming it up that I think the movie is worth seeing just for his performance. It's a bad performance, but you have to believe he knew it was bad while performing it. You have to be pretty bored to watch this one, but hey...I made it throuh the whole thing. Barely. September 9, 2006

Hilarious!

Okay, for those of you who HAVE seen this movie and are reading this, and even for those who haven't, let's get one thing straight right now: I am NOT giving this movie four stars based on it's artistic merits. This movie is not great. This movie is not good. This movie is not even bad. It is horrible, horrendous, and otherwise ridiculous. So why am I giving it four stars? Because I haven't had this much fun watching a movie since I don't know when.
First things first: the plot. The plot is simple enough; scientists create bigger, meaner, and faster sharks that they can control so that they can stop terrorists. Of course, this would be entirely useless unless the terrorists swam to America, but you get the point. But wait, something's gone wrong! The sharks have escaped! Who ever would have thought THAT would happen? Anyway, the sharks wreak havoc, attack people, yadda yadda yadda... but here's the thing: a grand total of five people die in this movie. A kid at the beginning, two repair people, a surfer, and one more person who it would be a spoiler to reveal. Five. There are six sharks in this movie, people! Anywho, the two main characters, a supposedley divorced couple of scientists, try to stop the sharks, warn the coast guard, etc. There's even a mean military guy who may have insidious plans of his own (hint hint). You may find yourself wondering like I did how they managed to strech this out for ninety minutes.
So, now that that's out of the way, lets' talk about the bad parts of this movie. Oh boy, where to start? The CGI is laughably bad- in fact, it's almost as bad as the abysmally bad acting (Deedee obviously didn't inherit her sister's acting abilities). The plot is also so ridiculous as to border on the insane. For example, in the movie, the main badguy is stopped when Deedee's character throws a life preserver on him. Why couldn't he just lift up his arms and take it off? Also, the shark called Red Dog is always said to be the biggest, fastest, and meanest. So, if he's the fastest, then why is he always the last in the sequences that show all of the sharks? However, the worst part, for me anyway, was when a couple was being attacked by the sharks, and a man comes out of nowhere with a harpoon... and kills the shark. The camera then zooms in on his face, and he just shakes his head. He is later described as an "overzealous fisherman." Oh, and let's not forget the scene where someone is killed at the beach, and the bystanders are all pointing in different directions! This movie is filled with little tidbits like that. Filled. As in, the WHOLE ENTIRE MOVIE is like that. Oh, and by the way, I hope you're not offended by movies that make fun of little people. 'Cause that's all over the place here, too.
So, you say, what are the good things? If you're giving this a four, it must have some redeeming qualities, right? Well, not so much. You see, there is one reason and one reason only why I gave this movie four out of five stars: it is, as my title suggests, hilarious. If you're the kind of person that loves to laugh at bad movies, then you cannot live without this little treasure. My entire family was laughing out loud the entire time; so much so that we had to pause it frequently so as not to miss upwards of five minutes of the movie (although I get the impression that I could have left halfway through and come back thirty minutes later and still known exactly what was going on). It's just that funny. And the sad part is, I'm pretty sure it wasn't done on purpose. (Mind you, some of it is. The main character references Kafka and the guard next him tells him not to swear. Huh? Was the reaction that both we as the audience and the character had.)
Now, of course, I couldn't give this movie a five, just out of sheer principle. But if you love laughing at bad movies, this is a must have. July 21, 2006

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