Requins - L'armée des profondeurs

Surprisingly not terrible. This made-for-TV action-horror-thriller has a good amount of shark kills and blood, especially for the ultra-gooey, super-sappy Hallmark Channel. I didn't know going into this that it was 2 hours and 38 minutes long (apparently shown in two parts over two nights on television.) When I finally glanced at the time on the DVD player, it showed 1:52 and we were nowhere near wrapping it up yet! Okay, if the time passed by that easily it must not be that horrible. John Schneider (Bo Duke) was actually really good. Darryl Hannah meh. Armand Assante was in his element in a stereotypical bad guy role. Lots of blood but little gore but still like 2 to 3 dozen kills. But why was no one concerned all these people were going missing?!?! Not exactly the most well-written script but I have seen much, much worse. Production value is better than I expected. Anything on Syfy Channel would have been pure trash. This actually rises to the top of the trash can.

4.8 / 10 stars

--Zoooma, a Kat Pirate Screener

"Hamilton Lux" (Armand Assante) is a real estate developer who wants to buy all of the homes and business of the small fishing town of Full Moon Bay in order to build condos overlooking the Pacific Ocean. So in order to compel the townsfolk to sell their property to him he has secretly poisoned the nearby coastal waters to kill all of the fish and impoverish the community to such an extent that they will be more than happy to take whatever he offers them. Unfortunately for him, one particular fisherman by the name of "Daniel Wilder" (John Schneider) has no intention of selling out and he happens to own a vital piece of property that Hamilton Lux needs desperately. Even worse is the fact that the particular chemicals used by Hamilton Lux to poison the fish has not only drastically affected the ecological balance but it has also resulted in the sharks hunting in large schools in search of the only food sources now available to them-vacationers enjoying the waters off Full Moon Bay. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that, for a made-for-television film, it wasn't too bad. Although I didn't care for some of the characters, I particularly liked the performance of Amy Zuckerman (as "Heather McComb") and the aforementioned Armand Assante. I also thought the shark footage was okay for the most part as well. In any case, although a bit long I have rated the movie as about average and recommend it to those who enjoy films of this type.

The only reason why I didn't rate Shark Swarm any lower was because of Armand Assante. Despite his rather stereotypical villainous character, he does put some gusto into his performance and he is enjoyable to watch. But the rest of the cast are poor. F Murray Abraham, outstanding in Amadeus, is wasted, he managed to save Blood Monkeys but he is not in Shark Swarm anywhere long enough to make the same impact. Daryl Hannah I loved in Splash and Roxanne, but other than her beauty she is very robotic and bland. John Schneider looks bored out of his mind, and who can blame him? They are not helped however their underdeveloped and very clichéd characters, nor by the horrendously cheesy writing. The story takes forever to get going, and never really picks up. The exposition scenes are dull and poorly written, the climax is contrived and the attacks are not scary or suspenseful in the slightest. The sharks are used sparsely, in hindsight you'd think that would work, however aside from the fact that they are horribly rendered in every scene they appear in(even the shark effects in Jersey Shore Shark Attack were this bad) you also don't learn anything about their origins or why they attack in the first place. In conclusion, Shark Swarm has nothing in its favour other than a pretty good turn from Assante(and actually even he deserved better than this). 2/10 Bethany Cox

This movie was a classic "B" - - SciFi type of movie. It has a wonderful cast of really good actors...but in my opinion the plot was anemic, the directing was even more-so...and I loved it! Why? Because the cast each did an excellent job of acting and the setting was believable. One can see from the 'heft' of big stars where the budget most certainly was spent. It most certainly wasn't spent on special effects or, for that matter, screen writing.

All in all, I would not only recommend it because of its positive aspects...but would watch it again and again if the opportunity affords itself. The positives outweigh the negatives.

The previous reviews pretty much summed up my feelings about this really bad movie, so I'll just add a few more tidbits that might further encourage you not to watch it. Lots of people killed by sharks and nobody misses them. Shark attacks and dead sharks on the beach and no shark warnings to keep people out of the water. Everyone who falls into the ocean gets eaten by sharks except the stars of the movie. This movie was so bad I stopped watching it 30 minutes before the ending. I'm guessing the ending was "sharks destroyed, boy gets girl, everyone lives happily ever after". 4 hours was about 240 minutes too long. What a waste of my time.