Released to TV in 2006, "Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep" chronicles the adventures of an expedition led by archaeologist Nicole (Victoria Pratt) to find a legendary Greek Opal, which turns out to be guarded by the very beast that murdered one of the team member's parents (Charlie O'Connell), a giant squid. As they come face to face with the creature they are forced to tangle with a ruthless treasure-hunting mobster (Jack Scalia), who will stop at nothing to steal the treasure.While the BC locations are great and the squid looks pretty good for low-budget CGI, the acting of the protagonists is too flat and the villain is overly cartoony. Fitness model Pratt comes off as a more buff Kate Hudson, but doesn't do much for me. Michal Yannai as Sally is equally blasé. The stunning Nicole McKay is on hand as the heavy's babe for all of 20 seconds. I realize a lot of work went into making this movie and it's worthwhile if you favor Pratt, O'Connell or sea monster flicks, but it's just overall too prosaic. The movie runs almost 90 minutes and was shot in Britannia Beach, Squamish & Vancouver, British Columbia. GRADE: C-

Thirty years ago, Ray Reiter (Charlie O'Connell) witnessed the death of his parents by the kraken. Determined to avenge their murders, he joins a perilous high seas expedition that brings him face to face with the kraken, the guardian of the Greek Opal. Oh, and there is a crime lord involved in here somewhere, too.This film is pretty awful. It looks like it was made for the SyFy network (and probably was), and its star power is Charlie O'Connell, the cheap version of Jerry O'Connell with a nastier voice. There is a part where they are looking for a Trojan mask. I have no idea how it got underwater, or how they had photos of it before it was surfaced (although two others exist).Product placement from Diet Pepsi. How Pepsi felt this in any way helped their image is beyond me.The soft pop rock totally not necessary... takes away from the film, which would have been better with a non-vocal score.Christa Campbell appears, but this does not save the film.

Not a bad story, but the low budget rears its ugly head at times to undermine the effectiveness of the movie. A lot of the plot is predictable, but the film moves quickly and takes some time to introduce characters so you at least have some involvement and know what's going on. An illustration of the low budget is when a motor boat is "destroyed," you only see this as a CGI image from a distance. (No boats were harmed during the filming of this movie.) I also love the "metal mask," that looks like a pie-tin mold.It's another big-sea-creature-on-the-loose story, but this one actually has an unusual motive for its vicious brutality (not simply hunger), a plot twist often absent in these made-for-TV flicks. The human characters are two teams of scientific artifacts treasure hunters (sort of an aquatic version of Raiders of the Lost Ark), and they're both after the same artifact. The bad guys all wear black so you know they're the bad guys; the baddest of the baddies (and the leader) always wears black suits, even though all the action is at a beach or on the water. Every line of dialog this guy has is a threat to somebody; they could have put a sign up saying "Generic Theat in Progress" whenever he shows up. The good guys wear other colors, even in their scuba gear so you know who's who during underwater fight scenes. The creature's inevitable attacks predictably interrupt these fights, and provide for other common monster movie clichés.Certainly not a landmark film, but OK for a watch if you like these sea monster movies, or if you have nothing better to do.

"Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep" is an all-right creature feature.**SPOILERS**Off the coast of, a diving crew, Nicole, (Victoria Pratt) Jenny, (Kristi Angus) and Michael, (Cory Montkeith) find a collection of sunken ships from throughout different time periods sunk in the area. Ray, (Charlie O'Connell) hears this and offers his help. After going on a dive, they are attacked by a giant squid, and barely make it back. Maxwell Odemus, (Jack Scalia) an old rival of Nicole's, arrives and offers a reluctant Nicole a proposition about the creature. After finding the true nature of the treasure found earlier, the two teams race to find it before being killed by the protective squid.The Good News: As far as giant squid movies go, this one wasn't all that bad. The best aspect is that it decides not to spend all the time on the creature and instead weaves into the lives of others, rather than just being stuck over a single night of carnage. It takes place over a couple days, and that's a rare sight for a film like this. It was also a pretty nice idea to not make it just a biological mutation and was instead just a regular creature. That makes for a far more believable monster. The underwater action is all great, combining to make some great moments. The first attack near the wreck is pretty suspenseful, as it's hard to really get a sense of what's going on in the scene and there's an air that something isn't quite right. It's one of the few scenes around that features a similar idea that's successfully executed right, making the suspense out of what is on-screen through the elements presented. The second dive does the suspense to a much lesser degree, but it makes up for it with the addition of a couple kills and some gore to the mix that is a little welcome. The few non-dragging deaths in here was also nice, but it's only too bad that it hardly ever happened.The Bad News: Frankly, this one suffers from one nagging problem that all similar films suffer from; the use of bad, cheap, phony looking CGI to render the monster. It looks very bad, hardly ever meshes with the actors on the screen, and doesn't really gel with the general rest of the film. It even changes sizes a couple times, making it less of threat. It really should be stopped. The only other really big gripe with the film is that it has a majority of deaths that just involve pulling someone under the water. Most of the kills are done that way, and it really didn't do a lot to establish a general feel for the creature. a couple of different methods would've made it a little more of a frightening creature. There's still a couple of other little moments in here that didn't work or were examples of the usual disregard for logic, plot, continuity or whatever else the Sci-Fi Channel's originals are consistently missing, which are in abundance here as well.The Final Verdict: It's a pretty decent film, but there's still some decent work in there along the way. The biggest thing is that the killer in the film isn't all that threatening, which can really destroy many films. Had that been fixed, it would've been an alright film at best.Rated : Violence and some language