Shark 3D

Some shark movies are laughable, cheesy, and way too far fetched (Sharktopus). Some shark movies and horror movies in general can just be unbelievably bad. This Australian film was a pleasant surprise. There wasn't scantily clad girls walking around topless (Piranha) or cheap thrills. This had some genuine pillow clenches, it had some unpredictability, great acting, and had a location I had not seen before in a shark movie, Australia. Most importantly it had characters I actually cared about! There is more to this shark flick than just sharp teeth and flesh. Dig your teeth into this film if you are a thriller, horror, shark movie fan.

I had mixed thoughts after reading reviews here but I decided to buy the 3D BluRay since it was on sale, glad I didn't listen to all the negative reviews. Phoebe Tonkin of the Secret Circle, Julian McMahon of Tip/Tuck and Dr. Doom in the Fantasitc Four, Xavier Samual from the Twilight Movies, not to mention a few other actors I did recognize from the movie Sanctum. First the good news the use of 3D in this movie is spot on everything coming at you from shark attacks to the minor details of other sea life like jelly fish and crabs, this movie is everything Shark Night wasn't. No its not boring its well paced with solid actors who take the material seriously. The movie never winks at itself and your become drawn in by the relationships, there is no one person who is the big hero and some unexpected deaths add to the drama. Now the bad while I will admit the special F/X could have used a bit more work they are miles above those seen in your typical SyFy Saturday Flick. I enjoyed the movie will watch again with friends and recommend it especially for those of us with 3D TV's you'll enjoy it all the more.

A tsunami hits the coast of Australia, trapping a group of (mostly pretty) people inside a flooded grocery store. Oh and there's a shark trapped in there with them. Okay, so just when you thought they couldn't come up with any new twists in the killer shark subgenre of horror, they go and come up with the brilliant idea of a shark in a grocery store. It's all pretty stupid but also kind of fun. It's a watchable popcorn flick. The Aussie cast is nice, including former H2O co-stars Phoebe Tonkin and Cariba Heine. They aren't mermaids here but that would have been cool. There's really nothing about this movie that stays with you after seeing it but, while you're watching, you'll probably enjoy it well enough.

It was real surprising for me to find out how watchable this movie actually was. I mean, a movie in which a shark attacks a bunch of people trapped in a supermarket, after a tsunami hit, doesn't exactly sound like high quality stuff. As a matter of fact. you would normally expect a movie like this to be extremely bad and cheesy but the movie, as it turned out, was far from cheesy and simply was being pretty good for what it was.

I still expected the worst, after the first 15 minutes or so, which wasn't exactly being a very promising start for the movie. It looked horrible and I feared for the rest of the movie. I expected it to be a very formulaic genre flick, in which nothing exciting or original ever happened. And even while the movie isn't being all that original, it still feels like a good watch, since it manages to entertain and takes itself serious enough.

That was perhaps being the key as to why the movie worked out; it took itself serious. Normally modern B-movies are very self aware and actors and directors obviously don't take their work all that serious. They make things deliberately cheesy to add to the fun factor and while this does work out at times, at others it makes the movie noting less but bad and annoying. In that regard it also was being refreshing to see how serious everybody involved took this movie. It definitely adds to the overall quality of the movie and its nice to see that this is a movie that took its audience serious and didn't treated them like a bunch of popcorn-eating-no-brainers, who only wanted to see lots of blood and nudity. The movie is not like that at all, even though the first 15 minutes would still suggest otherwise. Perhaps it was all deliberate and in the first 15 minutes they were like; 'this is what you expect us to do' and what after that follows was 'but this is what we are going to do with the concept'.

Thing I also liked about the movie was that it didn't featured one main, heroic character, in it, who saved everybody. instead there is a wide range of different characters in this, who all, just about, share an equal amount of screen time. None of them is pretending to be a hero, which also lets all of them all feel somewhat realistic and human-like.

On the downside; the special effects in this are pretty horrendous. Sort of funny that after 40-years, "Jaws" still has the most convincing looking shark in it. This movie too often relies on CGI effects, which aren't exactly of the best quality. But still, as far as shark movies go, this definitely is being one of the better ones, believe it or not.

Definitely watchable!

6/10

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What do you do when you are trapped underground in a flooded supermarket with sharks in the water? You fire off your underwater shotgun and taser the shark, of course!

Actually, "Bait" turned out to be quite entertaining and not at all as cheesy and stupid as I had initially anticipated it to be. Given the plot line of the story, first impressions don't bode well for "Bait". But give it a chance, because it was actually quite good.

The story is about a group of people getting stranded underground in a supermarket as a tsunami strikes Australia, as sea water rushes in and floods the complex, the people find that drowning is not the biggest of their problems. They are trapped with two ferocious white sharks.

There is a good amount of action and thrills in the movie, which turned out to be a great combination. The movie, despite being super predictable, does keep you thrilled and almost at the edge of your seat.

The concept idea is a bit far out there, but oddly enough it did work out well enough, because the movie was entertaining and interesting from start till end.

Obviously they didn't have real sharks there, duh, but the CGI effects were actually good, and the sharks did look realistic enough. And the use of prosthetic shark heads was also working out well enough. The effects in a movie like this is a determining and crucial factor between having the movie working or being utter rubbish. Luckily here, the effects were good.

There were two things in the movie that were not all that great. The scene with the swarm of crabs in the ventilation duct. What were the odds of them being right there at that exact moment? It was a bit too much in my opinion. And the second scene, that really shouldn't have made it to the final cut, was the ending scene. Are you kidding me? I will not reveal it here, just watch it yourself.

I will say that the people cast for the various roles in this movie were actually doing a good job with their given characters. The dialogue was good, the acting was good. Well, all except for one guy playing some cocky guy with spiteful remarks and jokes about everything, he just came off as fake and forced, so perhaps another actor would have been better there? Just my opinion.

All in all, "Bait" is a good shark movie, thrilling, lots of action and a good amount of blood.