Assaut de Requins

Well before you sit down to watch "Shark Week", you already know exactly what kind of movie you will be in for, and you know exactly what to (and what not to) expect from a movie such as this.

And on that account "Shark Week" delivers. You know what you are getting here. And the package is complete with a ridiculous story, poor CGI, rigid acting and stereotypical character gallery. So no surprises on that account.

First of all let's look at the story. A group of people have been captured by a rich mad man for some reason which actually never comes to see the light of day. And they are to compete in his demented contests that include sharks and people dying one by one, if they are to survive and make it off the Island. Wow, really? Oh my, what originality and what creativity. Oscar worthy? Hardly so...

Then we have the CGI and special effects. Well, let's just say that it didn't even look like the people hired to do the effects were trying all that hard. Either that, or they didn't have enough money, training to do it better or the equipment to do it right with. I am guessing it was a lack of funding. The effects in "Shark Week" were atrocious actually, and at no point do you really buy into the effects. But of course, you already know what you went into here with a movie such as this.

Don't count on seeing anyone familiar or famous in this movie. And those people who were on the cast list, weren't exactly standing in line to harvest awards for this movie, let's just leave it at that.

The characters in the movie were one-dimensional and showed about as much personality as wet cardboard. So you never really rooted for anyone of the characters, nor did you care when one of them died in a most laughable way of questionable effects.

I do enjoy shark movies, and creature features in general, but the shark genre tend to be ridden with movies that are of questionable value and either lacks proper effects or just use actual footage of sharks in the ocean and then reverse pan the angle to differentiate on using the same shot over and over. "Shark Week" is hardly a noteworthy addition to the shark genre.

So why do we keep watching these movies? Well, on the off chance that they actually turn out to be a surprise and a hidden gem in a vast ocean of otherwise questionable movies. Or because there is just something amusing and perverse in sitting down to watch these laughable movies. Sometimes they are so bad that they actually are fun. "Shark Week" wasn't one of those times...

Awakening to find themselves trapped on an island, a group learns they are to be subjected to a series of encounters with the host's collection of deadly, ravenous sharks to be able to leave the area alive.

Overall this one was an absolutely terrible killer shark film that really has so little going for it that it's almost unwatchable. The biggest issue with this one comes from its idea of utilizing the creatures as obstacles that must be overcome by the group in order to survive to the next trap, effectively rendering them into a state equal to a Torture Film set-up. It's basically turning the film and the creatures into a simple slasher effort only replacing the species as it's sharks instead of a human killer which is so insulting to their existence that it effectively kills whatever fear they might have as the end result robs their specialness in the most ludicrous way possible. This basically keeps the film running along into a singular mode here because every single set-up is the same thing only done in a different cave with different sharks so the results are incredibly underwhelming. Another problem here is that the idea for the madman's scheme for revenge is so laughable that it's impossible to think it's meant to be taken seriously and really makes this one quite a challenge to even get into the concept for the film. Beyond this, another big problem here is the whole affair is mired in a series of sloppy, utterly atrocious CGI effects that are utterly terrible by having such an obstruction of the action with their rampant blurriness and darkness due to being filmed in pitch-black that they're almost impossible to make out and have no lasting impact. These here are the film's flaws which are enough to really lower this one down significantly enough that the positives here are barely even registered. What does seem to work here is the near continuous action present as this one goes about the encounters in a quick enough fashion that there's enough to keep from being bored along the way. There's a few really exciting ambushes in the caves along the way here that do rely on some ingenuity to escape, and these here go get really bloody and brutal as well which get quite exciting. As well, it does have some great pains involved in laying out the mystery and trying to get it going, as this does take a while to get the point of what they're doing rather nicely. Beyond this, there's nothing else in this worthwhile.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Language.

For The Asylum, Shark Week is not their worst or quite awful enough to be one of them. That doesn't stop it though from being a complete failure in every area, and that's even when you know what to expect. Some of the locations are nice and exotic but others also look as though they were shot in a run-down warehouse or basement. That cheap look is made even worse by the choppy editing and terrible special effects. If you've seen the quality of the sharks in other Asylum or SyFy movies that are similar, it's pretty much the same in Shark Week, the sharks are so cheaply rendered and not only don't look real but they don't look natural in their surroundings. They also don't have any personality either, which severely dilutes any terror or tension, the actors don't even look all that terrified when really the situation would be scary for anybody. The music is at a very sluggish tempo especially in the scenes containing action, the scoring of the build-ups to the attacks is predictable. The dialogue has always been one of the weakest aspects of an Asylum movie, and there is no change here as this is very cheesy and stilted scripting. And you don't connect with any of the characters, as with everything else Shark Week doesn't give time to develop them or you the time to properly root for them. The story just doesn't seem to have any life, Shark Week is very poorly paced throughout, the action shows the worst of the editing and lifeless choreography and the shark attacks suffer from a complete lack of tension and visual cheapness, if you're expecting to be afraid of going into seas now you won't get that vibe. It also seemed rather tame, you'd expect a crossover of Saw and Jaws to have a similar impact to those movies but here it feels like Saw but without the harrowing violence and Jaws without the eerie nail-biting suspense. The acting is very bad too, Patrick Bergin and Yancy Butler are far too over-the-top and don't make any effort to reign in and give their characters depth or any quality that makes you connect with them. While the acting of victims are wooden with nobody seeming to properly care about whether they lived or died. Overall, dull, cheap and not much fun at all, more avoided than recommended. 1/10 Bethany Cox

The plot is awful, a rich eccentric drug tycoon wants revenge on 8 individuals so he captures them in order to have them play his game. The sharks in the film are horrible and in no way look real. They aren't even in the same frames as the actors, you either see a shark alone in the water or an actor being attacked or trying to escape. The acting is bad, but on par with other low budget shark movies. The movie drags on, boring you. If you can make it through the whole thing congrats, you just wasted an hour and a half of your life.

I only checked this out because I like shark movies and this was new to netflix instant stream. Don't bother

What a shame for the actors to play a movie as bad as this. 2012? as if it was made in Charlie Chaplin era. I swear it was the worst movie I have ever seen. Worst acting worst Director worst special effects worst music . I have no idea how was this movie released . We should be able to sue them for waisting our time & money on a movie as bad as this. I would give not 1 but -10 for this movie. I don't understand how come the producers put money on films as bas as this movie. Where do they go and learn directing or producing a movie as bad as this one. I swear if I watch an arabic movie made back in the 60's it would have been much better then this. It is really the worst ever movie I have watched in my life. Even in cartoons they make better special effects then this movie.