Rish Outfield's reviews
Before Titanic, I was one of James Cameron's biggest fans. After Titanic and The Whole Debacle and tyranist's never-ending tirades against it, I'm still one of James Cameron's biggest fans. So, of course, I was curious about his directorial debut. Well folks, it was a bad movie. He's not entirely to blame, since he didn't write it, or direct all of it . . . but a bad movie, just the same. It wasn't smart or innovative or moving or any of the James Cameron mainstays, in fact, it wasn't even scary. Italian-made, this had a very foreign feel to it, and parts made no sense. The titular monsters were neither frightening nor believable. Lance Henricken's cool, but that's about all that's going for this flick. Sorry, Jim.
Best Scare: There were a couple of moments when we waited for the fish to kill someone, such as when a man is feeling around in the water for something he dropped . . . and then, there was some tension. Still, once the creatures showed themselves, any previous fear was lost.
I'd Recommend It To: If you've gotta see Cameron's first, go ahead. Otherwise, rent The Terminator.

The tyranist's thoughts
This movie was just about as bad as I expected it to be. Even having James Cameron going for it didn't redeem how bad this idea was. Okay, the military has bred a fish that combines all of the aspects of piranhas, flying fish and grunion (this so that they can survive out of water) and then lost one of the barrels of fertilized eggs in a harbor that also happens to house a hotel run by a smarmy bastard. I can tell you that no matter how many times you try, it isn't going to work. On top of all of the normal bad movie offenses, however, is the fact that it so rips of Jaws that I started to wonder if the original evil fish movie were this bad as well. Luckily my memory didn't fail me and I still think Jaws is a pretty good movie.
James Cameron didn't do a terrible job piecing this together. I imagine the fact that there were like three Americans and thousands of Italians working on this made the process a little more difficult. The acting wasn't terrible. The dialogue wasn't bad. But somehow the movie was. Maybe it was those fish. They looked soooo bad. Of course, the fact that this movie is so utterly predictable also didn't help.