Creature (1998)

First of all, this was made for television. So gorehounds do know to stay away from this flick. It was made in two parts, each part taking in a whole flick. I also noticed that a lot of Jaws freaks were searching this talked about creature feature. But it surely isn't about the great white. It's a combination between horror and science fiction. But don't think you will see some kind of Alien rip-off. It do has some scary moments but the attacks are filmed off-screen. It never is bloody or even messy like Jaws. By clocking in over 150 minutes it sometimes takes too long to keep you attracted. If they had made it a 90 minute feature it would have been very nice. Kim Catrall is in it and is showing of in diving gear for the 'sex and the city' fans. The monster, not Kim I mean, is okay, you can see that it was some kind of shark turning in a creature like that one in Creature From The Black lagoon. I didn't hate it, but it's okay to watch with your kids

What is a mildly interesting and decent monster film is made less so by a weird sort of plagiarism, plus the nonsensical political dogma that seeps into the very-long adaptation.The first half of this middling excursion into undersea terror is pretty much a repeat of Jaws, and of course perfectly legit as Benchley wrote that in the first place and likely won't sue himself for plagiarism. The second part is awfully similar to the Creature from the Black Lagoon, mostly the 3rd film of the series, The Creature Walks Among Us, where he's transformed into an amphibious being by single-minded scientists. But the differences are enough that Universal probably couldn't make a strong case to sue, yet it's apparent to those who know the Black Lagoon series. Don't know if it was Benchley or scripter Rockne O'Bannon who's responsible for this. Interestingly, another O'Bannon did something similar turning It! The Terror From Beyond Space into Alien, which spawned a lawsuit that was successful.So back to Creature...the other problem is the rather outdated political sensibilities of a big government plot to create a monstrous biological weapon for use during Vietnam War, and subsequent typical cover-up by Gung Ho GIs who only live to kill. These are typical of Pen Densham and his gang who see Vietnam as US terrorizing innocents with all sorts of conspiracies, rather than US blundering into a war it found hard to fight, then made stupid decisions, and did not have the desire to win. Truth is Vietnam showed more about government incompetence than about government conspiracies.Their viewpoint is that the ecologically-minded scientist would always be at odds with the hard-boiled military crowd, and this must be the case in order to present dramatic conflict and the protagonist/antagonist situation, as typically the monsters or creations in their view are sympathetic, at least in the realm of pathos. As an example, when the scientist states he must kill the creature, it's taken as a matter of fact and necessity, with no dismay towards the scientist. But not so later when the Admiral states pretty much the same thing, and he's shown as callous and hard-core, and presented in a despicable light as is his crew.If you haven't seen it, you can figure out already that the worst enemy here, the military, gets its just rewards from the creature, yet of course, the creature is not as worthy of life as the environmental scientist, so must be second to go. I almost forgot, the epitome of capitalism presented here as a money-grubbing salvage operator has to meet an untimely demise also.But if you can get past all of this, then you might enjoy this on the level of a B-movie monster film, with the always superbly outstanding work of the monster-makers of Stan Winston Studios. Way better than CGI.

Oh god, this is the obviously the worst adaption ever made...involving Peter Bencheley. Peter Bencheley, why don't you just go take A SWIM? I love horror novels, but not ones that basically have the SAME plot: Giant creature comes and kills people. Gets bigger. Hu-huh. I can't stand it, no wonder this film is so unappreciated. Okay, maybe it's not THAT horribly dreadful...what the hell am I saying? THis film SUCKED! SUCKED HORRIBLY! If you're going to see a film on the Sci-Fi channel, wait till this crap ends. It is way too long and it gets way too off topic. I mean, REALLY how the hell can I plot go from just a shark attacking people to a bloody walking beast? Tell me that people, TELL ME! This movie sucked louder than you can scream 'BLOODY CREATURE! BLOODY, BLOODY CREATURE!' I recommend this film, oh yeah. But first, put nails in your eyes and cut off your ears. I don't even want to rate this film. EW!

I managed to miss (purposely) this 'movie' when it originally aired and I should have heeded my own warning.Someone said this movie was a 'gem'.. well, some gems need to be re-buried and covered by 48 billion tons of rock. I was saddened to see how the once semi-popular stars Craig T. Nelson (the Poltergeist series, Coach) and Kim Catrall (Sex in the City, Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country) had waded into the dismal abyss of c-grade films. This film has it all, a dull plot, terrible acting, REALLY cheap effects. Wow... A shark that can walk. I remember the unfunny cartoon with the same premise: Jabberjaw, from way back in the 70's. The biggest difference is we were SUPPOSED to laugh at Jabberjaw.Something tells me that Nelson was the real loser in this affair since some people can't recover from a somewhat tepid career after a run of moderate successes. Catrall is a decent actress, at least she had a longtime stint on the beforementioned 'Sex in the City', which is currently in reruns. The crazy islander / former lab technician looked like he'd sniffed about one too many tubes of Testor's Model Glue or worked in a factory that manufactures Sharpie's. The 'creature' was incredibly bad, which made it difficult to buy into the whole premise.I'll save my time and not even comment on Creature 2, because I turned it off about 5 minutes into it. I'm at the point at wondering if the Sci-Fi Channel's budget is so meager it can't afford to show a decent A OR B-list film, they're even worse at making their own productions.