bkoganbing I got to see Antonio Sabato, Jr. fresh from his appearance at the Republican convention in this film. It should better be titled Shark Destroyer because that's the mission Sabato is on.You can't really blame him, this prehistoric sixty foot Megladon survivor took his parents from him. Since then Sabato has become an oceanographer, but all that was training the subduing of his particular white whale.After another couple of incidents where this big guy did some serious damage, the last incident to an underwater laboratory, Sabato gets assigned to a submarine where the people there are divided between capturing and killing the big shark. Of course Sabato wants to kill it, but Heather Marie Marsden wants to take it alive. This is a plot we've seen a lot of, most especially in the first version of The Thing. Marsden also a scientist sounds a whole lot like scientist Robert Cornthwaite from that much better film.Think of Moby Dick when you see this. With the script most definitely not written by Herman Melville.

SnakesOnAnAfricanPlain A film that ends the way events like this probably would. Unfortunately, only a movie this low-budget, could afford to do so. The film has such a dry and lifeless look to it. Mostly because of the almost single setting. Submarine bases aren't that interesting with all their greys and blacks. In terms of effects the darkness helps out a lot. We usually get a silhouetted shark and just a section of its face lit up. This emphasizes the sheer scale of the shark, even if we don't get to appreciate it in all its menace. The movie also started off rather cleverly, with old home movies. This is probably the best way to build emotional connections with such a lackluster cast. It helps that they weren't talking. It's all down hill from there. Hokey dialog, boring and pompous "WE'RE SCIENTISTS DAMNIT!" speeches, emotionless relationships, and sheer boredom all follow. Much better films out there, with its biggest crime being, it just wasn't bad enough.

Vomitron_G People, seriously, you can't go watching a direct-to-video movie like this expecting material worthy of an Oscar, okay? You just can't come on here, slap it with a 2/10 rating just saying it was the worst movie ever. You don't go looking for plot holes in a virtually plot less movie. You just don't go complaining about under-developed characters or implausible events in a movie like this. This movie is about a Megalodon, which is a giant prehistoric monster-shark. So lighten up, folks. If you don't know what to expect from a movie like this, than you clearly haven't seen enough of them yet. So lower your standards and try to see it for what it really is. SHARK HUNTER (which is a very awful title in general and even a rather inappropriate one for this movie in particular) is in the same league as many of those recent underwater CGI sci-fi/horror/action quickies we've come to know recently (DEEP SHOCK, MEGALODON, OCTOPUS…). And it's even a bit in the same vein as those lovable 80's gems, like LEVIATHAN and DEEPSTAR SIX (albeit not on par with those), with the only difference that instead of some unknown mutating monster, it now features a… Megalodon.The set-up to the story is negligible. They use the opening-sequence to provide Antonio Sabato Jr.'s character traumatic background (yes, the dude's clearly still active in motion pictures): He saw his parents attacked and killed by a Megalodon (anyone seen the recent KRAKEN: TENTACLES OF THE DEEP? – they did the exact same thing in that one too). Then we learn that Antonio designed and built a complete submarine, but isn't allowed to play with it anymore by his superiors. He sobs and nags about it until an underwater research facility is destroyed by our over-sized granddaddy shark. So Antonio finally gets his chance to go underwater sailing again. And thus we quickly get to what this movie is all about: A crew, trapped in the claustrophobic setting of a submarine, which priority quickly shifts from capturing the Megalodon to eventually trying to kill it. Now let's rate it for what it is, because it is that and nothing more.The crew constantly battling the shark and the shark constantly damaging the sub (and even infiltrating it in one scene) are mildly entertaining events as far as that goes. The Megalodon vs. the mini-sub was fun too (although scenes like these are always inevitable in flicks of this kind). The underwater CGI (both of the machines and the Megalodon) were surprisingly good (they wisely decided to use a lot of shadows to hide all too obvious CGI). A tad bit better even than what you'd expect from a movie like this. They apparently used their little budget to the fullest and hired capable set designers to built the convincing, nice-looking interior sets of the submarine (although I admit, it looks pretty small inside if you compare all that to the exterior CGI shots of the sub). The acting even wasn't too bad, and Grand L. Bush (as Harrington) quickly became my favorite crew-member. Not only did he come across as the most talented actor of the whole cast, he also has the best lines of the movie. My summary-line of this comment is one of them (nice nod to Spielberg's JAWS, of course) but he's got more to say. The "Bambi vs. Godzilla" line and calling the Megalodon "a goddamn train with teeth" was funny, and you should see him during that whole "Stay out of my torpedo room"-conversation with Antonio (especially the look on his face when he says "Big f***ing deal."). That man really should move on to do bigger pictures.But what really made sitting through this movie all worthwhile was… the ending. You've seen this type of movies a zillion times before and you just know how it's going to end, right? Well think again, because what happens near the end earns this movie a whole big extra point. I for one sure didn't see this one coming.

joshstep41 Low budget movie about a giant shark. It really seems that Spielberg's JAWS (1975) made quite an impression on the world. SHARK HUNTER is just another film from an entire genre in the shadow of JAWS. Antonio Sabato Jr. stars as some sort of marine biologist hell bent on proving that his parents were killed by a prehistoric megalodon shark. Next thing you know he's at the bottom of the ocean with an experimental navy sub (crew included) fighting the twenty ton shark. Blah blah blah and loopholes so big, the shark could swim through them. However, no one is watching this type of movie for the story line...or even the acting. You are watching it for the killer shark.Every scene of this film with the sixty-foot long shark is computer-generated and it looks like the movie's budget went into these effects. And it surprisingly pays off. They did a pretty damn good job. The CG shots look better than the majority of scenes with CG sharks in Renny Harlin's DEEP BLUE SEA (1999).The only disappointment for me in this film were the shark attacks. The shark is so big that it can easily swallow a mini-sub (as shown in the movie). My point is that the shark is to big to attack people.The highlight of SHARK HUNTER, for me, was the ending. It took me by surprise...really unexpected.In conclusion, this is a really bad movie. However, if you love killer shark movies and have seen JAWS one too many times, this one's for you.