Planet of the Sharks

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.

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.

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

Oddly enough Planet of the Sharks came from syfy channel but with a plot involved. Yes, you heard me right, you actually get to see more than just silly, cheap CGI, you will indeed witness a plot developing under you very eyes.

That is of course if you can make it through this movie as it really is as terrible as they get, a movie where the brain needs to be shut down, and you need to see the forest beyond the trees. All in all, for a syfy production it is slightly better yes, but is that really saying much?

So if you wanna see a movie with sharks, but not much more, I guess if all the other nature channels have nothing on, you could do this. Tho I recommend you do not!

Cheers!

My fiance found this one Hulu I believe and thankfully we could watch it for free because I would have wasted money on this cause it is bad enough I wasted time. Though that is not fair, as it was very entertaining to make fun of this film, but riffing this film is like shooting fish in a barrel, just not much of a challenge. The sharks look horrid, like a screen saver coming across the screen and they don't even attempt to make them look real when they are jumping, you have people with accents that are barely audible and what made this one particularly bad was all the talking! I am like, don't cheapen yourself further by acting like this is some high end pretentious movie then throw super jumping sharks into the mix!

The story, the world is completely covered in water due to the ice caps melting and the fact that the people who made this film actually think that could cover the entire earth. Well we have this city called junk city population 72 getting attacked by the sharks right from the start with only one survivor...a girl who one would think is important, but really kind of pointless. Well another city with a population of over 400, though it looks like the same city and looks like it has less people and a scientific center join forces to combat the sharks! Not really, the strange leader of the one city speaks in what I finally figured must be a horrid Cajun accent tries to fight the sharks, and then there is just a whole lot of plans being formed that make no sense as white Ice T, hipster Bill Nye, pointless girl, fat comedy relief guy, surf board girl, Nye's girlfriend and Glen Close come together to talk a lot and once in a while fight stupid jumping sharks.

The actors and actresses in this film are just embarrassing. Honestly, had I gotten this script I would have said "hell no". They play it off so seriously and that somehow makes this all worse! When you see the sharks attack at the beginning this is not a film you are going to take seriously, but that is how it is played off. Not only seriously, but deadly seriously! Cajun lady had me laughing as her plan to fight the sharks was to stab them and have her guy friend then kick them...it worked better than that volcano plan!

So no, this film is bad to the highest degree. SyFy, used to be the SciFi channel and it was a great station. They would play animes, Godzilla films, horror films and they even had MST3K for awhile. Then they went to rather high end television shows and the occasional good home brewed movies. Now they seem to make their living doing mainly horrible shark movies, they should stop being the SyFy channel and just turn into the SharkFy station!