Dérive mortelle

I LOVE shark movies! Ever since I saw Jaws as a child I vowed to see every single shark movie ever made. When I saw this movie on NetFlix I was super happy, got myself a nice glass of wine, dimmed the lights and settled in for what I thought would be a shark fest of fun.

The movie starts off like most teenybopper type movies. A group of BFF's party it up and have a good old silly time together. They board their annoying arrogant friend's super yacht and have fun dancing, drinking and doing what young people do. They decide to go swimming in the ocean but being foolish and young they don't think to put the ladder down and opppps! they end up in quite the predicament.

The rest of the movie is spent listening to them whine and complain in the most annoying way. For the most part they end up doing stupid things that seem unrealistic but I can only assume this was filler since there is not much to show when you throw some people into the ocean with absolutely no other storyline other then that.

Some of the camera angles were quite scary when you are expecting a shark to come up and get his feast on. Scary underwater sounds, the darkness of the water, feet dangling treading water just taunting those hungry sharks. It would have made for a creepy suspenseful film except wait… where are the sharks?! I can't for the life of me figure out where the sharks went? Was this not a sequel? I cant imagine Harry Potter without Harry, Nightmare on Elmstreet without Freddy, what about Spiderman without Peter Parker! The only thing I can imagine was they were looking to make some quick easy money so they put a title on it that would attract.

I can forgive this if it was even remotely entertaining. As I stated above, there really isn't much you can do in 1.5 hours with a few folks dangling aimlessly in a huge ocean with nothing to do but be annoying.

Overall I wasn't that entertained. I've seen worse but I wouldn't recommend this movie to my friends. I'm still wondering where those sharks went though….

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From the start I was glued to the screen. The acting was good and believable and the plot was tense. Okay the plot may seem a bit dumb I hear you say, after all who forgets to put the ladder on their yacht down before jumping in the ocean, but hey apparently it'a a true story.

Basically the whole film is based around these guys and girls stuck in the ocean 'cos some moron forgot to put the ladder down before they all jumped in. One by one they get bumped off by a bump on the head, a knife wound, etc etc. I found myself thinking why doesn't one of them just lend one of the other members of the team their shoulders to 'bunk them up' so to speak so they can get up on to the deck.

It does seem to have minor influence from Dead Calm, but it's a much lower budget film I'm sure. The ending is confusing as hell. Are they all dead or not? I don't think the film maker intended to confuse us viewers, more likely he got stuck for a good ending and so made something that is not clearly defined and is rather disappointing.

Not a bad film but the ending really disappoints and confuses. Your mind will be boggling for days. I would suggest watching Saw instead.

The ending was quite confusing, but the rest of the movie was suspenseful and kept one on edge. In answer to a previous review, there was an anchor (it showed it several times) but it was not lowered. As far as drifting, the yacht did have grab handles on the front that the characters were holding on to. I'm not sure how it really works on a yacht, but it seems like there should be some way to lower the ladder from outside the boat within reach of the characters.

On the whole I preferred this more that the prequel Open Water (I know Adrift was the unofficial sequel, but you know what I mean). I hated Open Water. The two protagonists were unpleasant and, for me, the film lacked the suspense and terror people would have you believe.

Adrift, however, had more potential, with more characters, albeit not much more likable, and even a baby. The first hour or so was almost edge of your seat stuff, with the true horror of their desperate situation being depicted perfectly. However, once I'd got used to the fact that they were in the water and there was little hope of them getting back aboard, I lost interest and it all became a bit tedious. Putting horribly shallow individuals in deep water (nice) with little chance of salvation results in a complete lack of viewer sympathy, which ultimately impacts the movie experience. Furthermore, a needlessly ambiguous and nonsensical ending added frustration into the mix.

The film was supposed to have been based on "true events". Yes, I'm sure it was - very, very, very loosely based. Some of the acting was nearly good enough to cover the gaping holes in the plot, but never enough to conceal the basic absurdity of it all. To the UK newspaper reviewer who allegedly said "You'll be on the edge of your seat!" I can only concede that I was - this was only because my wife had hold of the waistband of my trousers to prevent me leaving the cinema. The ending was extremely unsatisfactory and I was left feeling very sorry for the actors, whose performances are the only reason I've rated it as highly as a 5.