Planet of the Sharks

Watched about five minutes of movie, felt like it may have killed off brain cells! One of the worst movies ever

Well, here's yet another rubbish SyFy shark movie. Slightly interesting idea about the ice caps melting & land mass now being underwater. With a few groups of survivors we have shades of Waterworld & Mad Max. However I got completely lost trying to understand the plot about the scientists' ambitious plan to reverse the environmental disaster. Acting is average at best but there are a couple of characters - the South African guy & the female leader with the Deep South accent - who are painfully bad to watch. Usual rubbish CGI sharks. The biggest gaff is that the film is set out in the ocean yet in some scenes you can clearly see waves crashing in with bathers STANDING, waste deep in water, in the background! Yes, it's that bad. Perhaps if they had made this film with tongue in cheek it may have been more watchable, sadly they played it straight.

Did none of you watch this on anything larger that an iPhone? The water scenes of the "floating" villages was shot in Houts Bay, south Africa. And in those scenes you can see the water breaking over the dock/seawall in the bay. This is supposed to be out in the middle of the deep ocean and the water is really about 6 foot deep. Notice how the anchoring ropes are almost horizontal indicating shallow water versus hanging straight down like an anchor in deep water. Of course in several scenes near the end you can actually see people (not in the movie) walking along the seawall in the deep background. Either they are walking on water or, most likely, the seawall. Hilarious. Then there's another scene where another boat motors by in the background. I won't even comment about the flying sharks as that was kind of expected.

Somebody needs to tell the people at SyFy that SHARKS DON'T ROAR! Almost every shark movie I've seen on the SyFy network lately contains roaring sharks that sound like lions--and those sounds were obviously taken from pre-recorded lion roars.

That said, the reason I'm giving this a 4 out of 10 because it's not as bad as "Sharknado". Yes, there is still--as in almost every SyFy movie-- some kind of disgusting & egregious use of pretty young girls getting all hot over young guys; SyFy just loves their pointless use of sexuality. However, at least the writing in this film's story isn't quite as awful as some other SyFy flicks. There are some (sort-of) likable characters and a decent story arc.

There is actually an okay story here; there's a decent beginning, middle, and end. Some like-able characters also sweeten the mix. Unlike "Sharknado" there are actually some well-edited bits of stock footage of sharks mixed into the film that don't look too out-of-place. The acting is naturally sub-par, but it's not total garbage. You can tell some of these actors at least rehearsed their roles and didn't push it or over-act them.

So while "Planet of the Sharks" definitely isn't the film you want to save for that special weekend night, it could be a good bit of entertainment to chuckle at with a buddy or your significant other on a rainy day. It is totally forgettable, but it's not so awful it'll make you angry!

4/10 for creative effort, some okay writing, and entertainment value.

Have made no secret in the past of intensely disliking, and even outright hating a lot, a vast majority of The Asylum's and SyFy's (near-universally maligned for good reason) output, though there is curiosity as to whether they are capable of making something good and compulsive about their output's badness. Admittedly, both The Asylum and SyFy do have a small group of watchable films and the occasional (big emphasis on that word) above average one, unfortunately outweighed by the lacklustre at best and often dreadful films they churn out.

Before anybody gets defensive, am well aware that films like 'Planet of the Sharks' are not ones to be taken seriously. Have seen my fair share of low-budget shark films, and any other kind of low-budget creature film, and will admit to finding some guilty fun in some of them (i.e. the first two 'Sharknado' films). There are far worse shark films, but is that an endorsement or saying much? Not really.

Take no pleasure in rating films low or leaving negative reviews. Actually always aim to be an encouraging and perceptive reviewer, and 1/10 ratings are extremely rare.

Sadly 'Planet of the Sharks' is just too amateurish to accept as a guilty pleasure, where nearly everything is just poor quality that it's insulting and there is nowhere near enough fun, intentional or unintentional, moments. Was not expecting anything intelligent here, am well versed now to know that it is not that kind of film, but it does feel like it was made by somebody who didn't know how to give a film brains, so much so that it'll make the viewer feel dumb and that is not a nice sensation to feel watching a film.

Got some marginal entertainment out of the opening scene as it was sort of fun, although it was also very predictable and silly. Unfortunately, it rapidly fell downhill, where ridiculousness and cheapness amongst other things were taken to extremes.

Visually, even when knowing what to expect, 'Planet of the Sharks' still looks really cheap. Any nice scenery that the movie has is difficult to appreciate when the movie is shot in such a drab way and when it's edited so amateurishly that bacon-slicer-like editing looks more refined. Worst of all in this regard are the effects, as it was made on low-budget it would have been forgiven a little if it was not great, but when the effects for the sharks look as if no effort was given in making them without looking so goofy and unfinished-looking that is hard to ignore.

Can say little better about the personalities. The sharks are not menacing, not scary and not fun, not even strong enough to bring any unintentional humour or goofiness, that's how bland they are. The music is very generic and adds very little, it's not always appropriate either and quite a lot of it is actually pretty annoying.

Writing ranges between incredibly bad to appalling. Any comedy is incredibly forced and is so cheesy it is enough to make the eyes roll in disbelief, while the more serious moments are very awkwardly written and as trite as anybody can possibly go. Regarding the shark attacks, some are rushed, others are badly drawn out. They lack any kind of suspense and the over-silliness to the point of intelligence-insulting stupidity, terrible shark effects, bad editing and even more gratuitous gore further cheapen them. To describe the story as weak is being too insulting to the word weak, it is a very lethargically paced and thin as ice story with lots of padding that is either badly written or serves no point at all to the movie, other than attempts at novelty value, which falls flat on its face because it all feels so tired. It is not fun, it is not scary and it is not thrilling or suspenseful, it's just nothing but tired stupidity.

As for the characters, that they're tired cliches isn't so much a problem, the problem is that they are either obnoxious with them constantly doing stupid things, so bland that it makes zombies seem more animated or both. Some of them are superfluous to the story or come and go out of nowhere constantly. The direction is as flat as a pancake, and the acting is amateur hour awful. The film may not unforgivably waste dependable actors, again that is saying little when you are watching actors looking bored or over-compensating to extreme levels.

Overall, awful. 1/10 Bethany Cox