- Directed by Marc Fehse
- Written by A.D. Morel, Marc Fehse, Carsten Fehse
- Stars Thomas Morris, Eva Habermann, Barbara Nedeljakova
- Run Time: 1 Hour 42 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcN_gLBIvZY
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This movie sort of brings together all the shark things into one movie and takes it up a notch. It’s got sex, gore, more gore, even more gore, zombies, and fighting action. You might think they can’t top the opening scene before the credits? They can and do. This one’s a winner and well worth the watch.
Synopsis
We start out on an airline, and we see the various characters aboard. Father Rodriguez tells the nun next him about his conversion story. We see that Michael Morel is a sexist drunk.
A couple of passengers think they see sharks flying outside. What?
It’s not just sharks. It’s men riding on flying sharks. Flying sharks with air-to-air missiles. The shark-riding soldiers board the plane. It’s not just shark-riding flying soldiers, but these are shark-riding flying zombie soldiers. Oh, and they’re Nazis too. Soon, everyone dies.
Credits roll. Yeah, that’s how you do an establishing scene!
Angelique Richter drives to the research lab, where, “Investigation of Ancient War Machine” is on the sign outside. Inside, a 115-year-old man is rejuvenated to a much younger version of himself. Their men are looking into the plane crash.
Meanwhile, in the arctic in the Richter Research base there, they are already scanning “The Object.” It’s some kind of huge warship that’s been crashed there for decades. As Diabla Richter arrives, the Nazi zombies are already in the process of taking over the base.
Turns out, the artifact is just full of Nazi zombies in frozen storage. 115-year-old Dr. Klaus Richter says his past is finally catching up with him. As Diabla fights the undead Nazis, the shark-riders return. One of them injects Diabla with something.
Suddenly, all the flying sharks and the giant warship vanish. They can go invisible too? Diabla’s infected with something, and it’s having some odd effects on her. Diabla makes it back to the headquarters, and both she and her sister ask Klaus what he knows about all this.
As he explains about Dr. Kammler’s Nazi research from back in 1944, we get a flashback. When the German airforce was being shot down, they came to Kammler for his antigravity sharks. They also have K7B, a super-soldier formula. It will even revive their dead soldiers! We learn all this through an awesome animated featurette. Their special research ship vanished, so Kammler went to Venezuela when things fell apart.
Richter was there as well, and he helped synthesize the K7B, which is how he’s still alive after all these years. He says that there are thousands of antigravity sharks, including 20 really special ones that could destroy cities.
Back in the present, sky sharks are attacking places all over the world. Richter’s on our side now, and he wants to strike back. He thinks he knows how to disable the sharks’ cloak ability.
Air flights are canceled everywhere, and economies are starting to suffer. The Eiffel Tower is blown up. Big Ben is gone. Pandemonium!
One airplane is allowed to fly from Europe to the USA. The sharks appear behind it; they are bait. The shark riders do their worst, and it’s a fun scene.
Meanwhile, the Richter sisters are getting their troops ready for combat. They fire their de-cloaking pulse, but now all the sharks are mutating to compensate.
Richter says the sharks are coming after him in New York. Their only choice is to activate project “Dead Flesh.” Time for another animated flashback to zombies versus super soldiers in Vietnam.
Richter sends in his giant, floating, flying, cybernetic, mutant, laser-blasting, armor-plated, mind-controlled megalodon to clear up the little guys while the soldiers in the airplane fight zombies. Meanwhile, Diabla starts to change into a zombie herself and Angelique tries to stop her.
Things go well for the good guys, and the nazi sharks are no more.
Commentary
The flying sharks might just be the easiest part of this one to believe. There’s just so much going on that it could have been a miniseries and still not explained everything.
The cast is huge, with a lot of tiny cameos. We recognized quite a few, but your mileage may vary. The vast majority of the special effects are CGI – some of the scenes and sets appear to have nothing “real” but the actors, but this is so over-the-top that it’s hard not to love it.
The visuals, animation, and especially the soundtrack really sell this one. It’s a lot of fun, and easily my favorite film this week.