Shark Attack 3: Megladon is a 2002 film written by Scott Devine and William Hooke (Shark Attack and Shark Attack 2) and directed by David Worth. It stars John Barrowman (Torchwood, Arrow), Jenny McShane (Shark Attack) and Ryan Cutrona (24, Mad Men).
The film opens as the vessel SS Bountress is repairing a deep sea pipeline containing communications cable for Apex Corporation. Suddenly, an unidentified large object appears on the ship’s instruments and one of the world is killed. Six months later, two lifeguards, Ben and Esai (Barrowman and George Stanchev), take time out of their work day to catch lobsters to resell. Ben finds a shark tooth in the underwater cable casing and his attempts to figure out what kind of shark it is fail. He sends the tooth to the a natural history researcher in hope of being able to identify it. When Cat Stone, the researcher, sees it, she immediately knows it came from an prehistoric shark called a megladon. She makes plans to visit Playa del Rey, where Ben works.
Cat arrives just as a couple is killed by a shark after falling down a water slide. She, Ben and Esai go out to where Ben was diving for lobsters and start chumming the area trying to lure the shark. It works. The shark attacks a boat and the underwater cable again, leaving another tooth. Cat has bad news – it is a megladon, but the size is wrong, it should be much bigger. That can only mean this shark is a baby.
After the shark kills a few more people, Ben tries to convince his boss to close the beach, but the boss refuses. They decide to try and track the shark down to kill it, but the shark has other plans. It attacks the boat, eventually getting inside through a hole in the hull and tries to kill Cat. After narrowly avoiding death, mama shark shows up, swallowing Esai and his boat whole. Ben and Cat escape in a helicopter and solidify their next plot to kill the shark using a small submarine and a torpedo.
The next day, Apex Corporation is hosting a congratulatory cruise around the bay and the giant megladon attacks it, sending people flying overboard. The Apex CEO and several others are killed and Ben and team must then use the mini-sub to snare the megladon and give the torpedo something to lock onto. Their plan works, but as they are celebrating, an omnious figure is seen below the water at a nearby shore.
When it comes to bad shark movies, or bad movies in general, I have made fun of Shark Attack 3: Megladon since its release. But, truth be told – I never saw it until I knew I really needed to for this review. It lived up to my expectations.
Barrowman, still fresh-faced and in the first stages of his career, was undoubtedly cast for his good looks and ability to flaunt them for the camera. Jenny McShane as Cat does an admirable job. I had to look up the original Shark Attack to see if Cat was a character throughout all of them, but they are different characters.
The shark attack scenes were generally acceptable, with the notable exception of the “roar” the sharks made while attacking – as far as I know, sharks don’t roar. Bashar Rahal as Luis failed to impress and seemed like he was reading cue cards the entire time. Unfortunately, he survived until rather late in the movie.
The film has been suspected to be an unauthorized translation of the novel Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror.
Shark Attack 3: Megladon is by far the worst of the shark films, and it would live up to Shark Week viewing with any of the Sharkado films. It has some fun scenes, some awful scenes, but is fairly benign. You can find it on TubiTV and Amazon Prime Video.
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Shark Attack 3: Megalodon
So, it seems the one essential element in many shark films is someone suggests closing the beach, and someone else, in higher authority, overrules the suggestion and we wind up with a human smorgasbord for an apex predator.
I might, at least, watch the first in the series when I have nothing better to do.
Well done, sir.