text: I'd have to say that I've seen worse Sci Fi Channel originals, but this Nu Image shonker from Yossi Wein was still quite a drag. The big problem with it is that it simply isn't convincing, not just its creature, but acting, writing and any attempts at drama. The direction lacks any kind of flair and the script from Boaz Davidson and Danny Lerner never really works, predictable, often laughable, whilst it delivers less howlers than a fair few of these sorts of films it never offers anything to engage or raise the pulse. The actors do their best, but with such material their workmanlike efforts have little effect. Matthew Reilly Burke is a blandly watchable hero, Meredith Morton similar as a blandly watchable love interest. Actually she was a bit less convincing but at least she was easy on the eyes. The film at least has the dignity to bowl along at a reasonable pace, but its biggest plus is that the octopus isn't entirely CGI rendered. So even though it doesn't look good, at least there are a few legit scenes of characters inanely grappling with rubbery tentacles in pretty amusing fashion. I also chuckled at the disparities between different representations of the octopus, the cgi shots of the creature as a whole vary over the course of the film, they are also different not only in size but appearance to the practical shots of it, and there are scenes where the tentacle action suggests that the makers had abandoned pretending they were making a film about an octopus and just envisioned their creature as a bunch of miscellaneous tentacles. The scenes of the creature attacking people get old pretty swiftly, but there are a few funny scenes where it takes on other things, like a boat and a crane. Yes, these scenes are poor, but they did make me chuckle. Undisputable highlight though is a hilarious sequence in which the octopus takes on a New York landmark, the scene may not be much more than a minute but it really is inspired, and well worth looking up on youtube. Apart from that things are uninspired all round, (a PG level lack of gore or nastiness stops this one from even pulling off much in the trash good times) the film does take a turn into semi gripping disaster movie territory at the end, but I can't really give it credit because the best shots in the last few scenes were culled from the Stallone flick Daylight (which by my recollection is quite good). Altogether this was pretty rubbishy stuff and not something I'd really recommend to anyone except creature feature die hards. Better than a poke in the eye with a wet stick, but not by much.