Shark Night 3D

I went into this movie thinking I was going to be bored to death. The only reason why we saw this was because it was a holiday, hardly anything was open and we were going stir crazy at home. I've said this before and I will say this again… I love my gore, I love my violence and I love my crazy horror movies. Once you put a PG rating on something I instantly loose my interest.

After all that being said it turned out that I really enjoyed this movie. Of course I should have known this. For one I LOVE shark movies, I love teen screams, I love those goofy Sci-Fi channel horror movies with the cheese graphics. My Fiancée on the other hand did not like this movie but he never did like these sort of teeny bop things.

This movie is extremely teeny boppy, the lingo, the acting, the drama. The characters are the same hollow but hot bunch of college kids we see in all of these types of movies. So I wouldn't go in expecting anything deep from the characters or script. There was a lot of blood but it was mostly just someone being pulled under the water and buckets of blood being shown floating around them. You never actually see any gore or any attack close up.

The sharks for the most part were silly. I thought it was cool but it was very unrealistic which sort of killed it for me as well. We kept thinking the storyline would explain why these sharks were super ninja sharks. They were ridiculously fast, jumped way too high and there teeth were almost like metal'ish spikes. Apparently it was only part of the movie as they never explain anything as to why they were super sharks.

This movie was not bad IF you like this sort of thing. It wasn't particularly funny, or deep, the graphics sucked, it was rated PG… but if like me you love the things I listed in the second paragraph, you may enjoy this.

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About this time last year, I saw a movie called "Piranha." It was a loose remake of a 1978 cult favorite produced by Roger Corman; the sort of cheesy B-movie that was so laughably bad that it ascended to being good fun. That was, of course, the original film, not the remake, which made it onto my list of the worst movies of 2010. Now, exactly one year later, my hopes for seeing a good creature-feature on the silver screen have once again been crushed by what was, essentially, the exact same picture I saw last fall. The only difference is, now the obnoxious, hard-to-endure stick-figure characters are being munched on by big fake CGI sharks instead of big fake CGI piranhas.

But it's really the same scenario. Some brainless young adults are frolicking about on a big, freshwater lake when all of a sudden, people are being tossed about and pulled under by unseen attackers. About thirty minutes in, it's revealed (as if we didn't already know) that the lake has been infested by sharks. And not just great whites, either. No, there are hammerheads, tiger sharks, bulls, and even cookie-cutters. How are all of these oceanic species ending up in a freshwater lake? Well, the movie gives an explanation, but it's one of the most outrageously bad plot twists in recent years. And remember, I'm an aficionado on the junk monster movies that pop up on the SyFy Channel every weekend. Now, I do not go to a monster movie looking for great character study or plot logistics. I go there looking for good old-fashioned, escapist fun. Only when a B-movie becomes so incredibly empty and devoid of joy do I start nitpicking on things I might otherwise overlook until after the credits have rolled. But the writing and directing of "Shark Night" (which by the way, mostly takes place under a bright sunny sky) is so bland, so unenthusiastic, so absent-minded that it left me looking at my watch after about twenty minutes. After the first attack sequence, which starts with a predictable twist and then becomes a practical shot-for-shot knock-off from the all-more-effective opening scene in "Jaws," the only thing that ran through my mind was wondering how long it would be before Steven Spielberg and Universal decided to pitch out a lawsuit for copyright infringement.

The whole movie looks and feels very much like it was made directly for a television release, giving it a sort of schizophrenic, out-of-place feeling. The fact that the performances are beneath comment does not help any, since they are on screen far more often than the cartoony, computer-generated sharks who can twist their necks as flexibly as a human arm and snarl like lions. In addition, there is the other big problem that I also had with "Piranha": dopey exploitation. The movie's far more interested in ogling at the hindquarters and torsos of partially-naked models-turned-'actors' than it is in developing plausible attack scenarios or engaging the audience in the way only a good B-movie can.

Well, at least there weren't any underwater lesbian scenes this time. No chewed up, sex organs either. Thank heaven.

If the writers had realized that they were making a movie for the big screen and not for television, "Shark Night" might have proved to be a solid, lighthearted matinée. Instead, it fails to recognize what it ought to have been and pretends to be a grade-A exploitation flick, falling flat from the beginning. In regards to its 3D: it's thoroughly unimpressive. Granted, I am not the biggest fan of 3D; I think it's a cheap, unengaging gimmick. But half the time, you wouldn't know this were a 3D movie if it weren't for the bulky glasses sitting on your nose. It's still murky and nothing jumps out from the screen except for a few pieces from a motorboat and some seaweeds. Not scary, not entertaining, not even remotely interesting, "Shark Night" was one of the more unhappy times I've had at the movies.

It seems like the only folks who can still produce good monster flicks are the Japanese. Their contemporary rubber monsters smashing miniature Tokyos and Osakas are far more interesting than any monster mayhem I've seen on the big screen in a long while.

Seven young and pretty undergraduates head to a secluded lakeside cottage in Louisiana to take a load off and enjoy a wild and crazy weekend away. But things take a turn for the worst when a member of the group is attacked by a shark. Isolated with no cell service and no help in sight, the group quickly realizes they are on their own, but the water around them is not safe.

I wanted Shark Night 3D to be as fun as Piranha 3D was last year. Despite the PG-13 rating, I held onto a desperate hope that it would somehow manage to live up to that level of gleeful insanity and absolutely ridiculous trashiness. I knew deep down it would never be anywhere near comparable, but everything about the film suggested it would be an enjoyable ride.

Sadly, this is not the case.

Instead of getting a ridiculous movie about sharks mauling pretty 20- somethings that embraces the sheer silliness of the very idea, we get a deadly serious, high-concept slasher film that seems to have no concept of what fun is. Sure we get the typical horror movie wise ass quips sprinkled here and there, and some rather intriguing reasoning as to why the attacks are occurring. But in-between these moments, we get stilted dialogue, wooden performances, characters with next to no dimensionality whatsoever, and just about nothing else. Despite it being 2011, the film feels like it belongs to a different era – one where it has not realized how outrageous and frivolous the genre has become. It offers nothing new by way of ideas or story, and somehow thinks an ode to Jaws at the beginning of the film is appropriate. I initially wanted to criticize Shark Night for cribbing from Piranha. But in watching the film, it is obvious they learned absolutely nothing from Alexandre Aja and his crew.

But while the bad story and worse acting are to be expected, what is really disappointing is just how much of a grand tease the whole movie is. The rating may be a contributing factor, but the only thing it seems to cut out is gratuitous nudity. The T and A is still plentiful, and the film is actually surprisingly graphic in some instances. But the majority of deaths, the best part of any slasher film, are merely hinted at. We see characters get pulled underwater, and just when you think we will see their grisly end, the film inexplicably cuts to the next scene. Hell, we do not even get the obligatory shot confirming that a character did indeed die. How do we know they did not manage to fight off the shark and survive to fight another day? And since there are about ten people in the entire cast, most of which meet an untimely end, that is a whole lot of teasing and not a lot of pay off. I can only think of one that is explicitly shown, and even that seemed like it was pushing it based on what happens during the rest of the film. It is all very arbitrary, but it seems like a rather obscene faux pas on the part of the filmmakers.

Remember how comically bad and exaggerated the piranha looked in Piranha 3D? Somehow, the sharks in Shark Night 3D look even worse. There is nothing realistic about them. They look more cartoonish than anything, standing out as not even attempting to look like they belong in any of the scenes. They make memories of the shark from Jaws appear more frighteningly authentic than I thought possible. But this is only when the sharks are swimming around underwater, looking menacing and hungry . When they actually interact with the characters, they look absolutely absurd and preposterous. A shot involving a shark leaping out of the water to attack one of the characters as he zips by on a jet-ski looks even worse than those ludicrously awful effects you may have seen from Shark Attack 3: Megalodon. They may actually qualify for some of the worst effects in the past decade. Surely the special effects team realized they were working on an actual movie with a budget, and not some straight-to-DVD Asylum knockoff. So what could possibly be there excuse for such a terrible job?

I think the only thing I remotely enjoyed was how impressive the underwater shots looked in 3D. They were clearly shot with the format in mind, and look absolutely stunning even with a fake shark in the background. They frequently took me entirely out of the film, as they look like they belong in a significantly better project. The shots are just so tranquil and so beautiful that they may make you forget what an awful movie you are sitting through. With the exception of an over-the- top explosion, this is just about the only thing that sizzles in 3D. There are no other elements that even attempt to take advantage of the format.

When I tell you that Shark Night 3D is one of the worst films of the year, with next to no redeeming qualities, you better believe I am not lying. I was hoping it would be somewhat fun, but instead it was one of the most annoying and agonizing films I have ever put myself through. The film is too serious to be enjoyable, and fails to deliver in almost every respect. The filmmakers and cast should be ashamed of themselves. When the credits rolled, I could not leave the theatre fast enough because I was ashamed to have actually watched it. Apparently there is a rap music video after the credits conclude, featuring the entire cast. Somehow, I still do not think this could make up for the travesty you have to put yourself through to get to it.

3/10.

(An extended review also appeared on http://www.geekspeakmagazine.com).

This movie started out so great, it had that whole "Jaws"-theme going on, and it really looked like it was going to be a movie that would pay homage to the classic "Jaws" movies, then it all came crashing down hard and went downhill.

"Shark Night" is without a doubt one of the stupidest story lines I have ever seen in a shark movie. The whole plot was just so far-fetched that it didn't even come off remotely plausible. That whole "oh-you-hurt-me-years-ago-and-now-it-is-payback-time" plot didn't work at all! It was ludicrous and it really made the movie bad.

Another thing that the movie had working against it was the darkness. Most of the movie was shot at night with little or no lighting at all, and you couldn't really see what was going on at times. That was so lame. When you sit down to watch movies you don't want to be kept in the dark and have little chance to see what's going on. Had they kept the movie in daylight it would have worked so much better.

As for the characters in the movie, well you hardly got to immerse yourself in any of the characters, aside from Sara (played by Sara Paxton) and to some extend Dennis (played by Chris Carmack). The rest of the characters were nothing more than bystanders with shallow stories to contribute to the plot.

The cast themselves were good, though. The people they had cast for the various roles actually did good jobs, and that was the main thing that "Shark Night" had working for it.

Having seen "Shark Night" now I feel very disappointed and cheated out of my time, because this movie was disappointing on so many levels. It is only once in awhile that there is a really nice shark movie to hit the market, "Shark Night" however, wasn't one of them.

And the ending of the movie, are you kidding me? Come on! I am not going to spoil it here by revealing it, but wow, that was an ending you saw coming a mile away, and it was just so anti-climatic.

¨Terror runs deep¨

Shark Night is a terrible movie, I have to admit it, but somehow I ended up having a fun time with it. The performances are low key, the script borderlines in the ridiculous, and the story is really predictable, but in the mist of all the disaster I found myself having an enjoyable experience. Shark Night is a movie that takes its subject matter very lightly, it doesn't try to be a serious horror film, or even try to show a lot of gore or being scary. It's a movie that recognizes its limitations and plays along with it. What makes this bad movie stand out from the rest is that it ends up being bad in a good way, in other words it makes you laugh because it's so bad. The plot is so bad that it seems that director David R. Ellis decided to just play along with the audience and let us have a good time without having to make the film gory or extremely violent. He gives us a lot of sharks, a lot of kills, and if taken lightly like the producers want you to you might end up having a good time like I did. If you are expecting a scary movie with a lot of gore than I warn you stay away from Shark Night because it's just a light comedy with some bad acting and bad special effects. If you go into this movie expecting nothing else than that, just like I did, then you might end up having a decent time. One thing is for sure: screenwriters Will Hayes and Jesse Studenberg won't be winning any awards for their dumbed down script.

It's time to explain my least favorite part of the film: the plot. Shark Night takes place in a lake near the Louisiana Gulf coast (yes you read right, there are sharks in a lake and there is a perfectly good reason for that). A group of teenagers decide to go to Sara's (Sara Paxton) lake house to celebrate Malik's (Sinqua Walls) recent success in an exam that will allow him to enter college. His friends Nick (Dustin Milligan) and Gordon (Joel David Morse) were the ones who helped him study so in order to thank them he brings them along although they aren't part of the cool group. At the house Malik plans to propose to his girlfriend Maya (Alyssa Diaz). Beth (Katharine McPhee) and Blake (Chris Zylka) also decide to go along with the rest of the gang and have some fun at the lake. Before arriving to the house however they have a small quarrel with a pair of local hillbillies Red (Joshua Leonard) and Dennis (Chris Carmack) with whom Sara is acquainted with, but everything goes on as normal. At the lake they meet the Sheriff, Sabin (Donal Logue), who greets them warmly and even has a couple of drinks with them. The kids are ready to have a great time and begin enjoying the lake, but what they don't know is that the lake is infested with sharks. What begins as innocent fun, ends up being a nightmare for Sara and her friends.

The actors are all relatively unknown and there is a good reason for that (they aren't exactly great actors), but you can't have a shark film without hot young teens. The movie really works better as a comedy than as a horror film because the plot is just ridiculous, but I did have a fun time with how the shark attacks were exaggerated. There was one scene were a shark jumps several feet over the water and eats one of the kids that is riding a motorbike. These sharks were just so exaggerated that you couldn't help but laugh at the silliness of each scene. There are several more death scenes like this which are hugely exaggerated and I found quite funny. There is no gore because Shark Attack had a PG-13 rating so don't expect much of the death scenes from the Final Destination producers. I haven't seen the Piranhas film so I can't make comparisons with it, but I heard this is nothing like the gore that film had, so if you want a stronger film or expect something like Piranhas then skip this film because you will be disappointed. Shark Night has nothing memorable to it, but I did have a surprisingly good time with it so I got to give it a passing grade, although the lowest possible one.

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