Shark Week

During the opening credits, a muscular man appears in chains. The key to escape is thrown into a swimming pool by cigar-smoking Patrick Bergin (as Tiburon). Unfortunately, there is also a shark in the pool. Next we see people abducted in Los Angeles, Malibu, Echo Park, Culver City, Venice Beach and Long Beach. The abductor is Mr. Bergin. He has eight victims to throw into his shark-infested swimming pool. If they escape, there is another test. Each test involves more vicious sharks. This is a tame swipe of the mega-violent "Saw" film series. Bergin's criminal partner is mini-skirted Yancy Butler (as Elena). They hold each other up and blink their eyes very slowly, like they've just seen this flicker across the screen.

** Shark Week (8/4/12) Christopher Ray ~ Patrick Bergin, Yancy Butler, Erin Coker, Josh Allen

Well before you sit down to watch "Shark Week", you already know exactly what kind of movie you will be in for, and you know exactly what to (and what not to) expect from a movie such as this.

And on that account "Shark Week" delivers. You know what you are getting here. And the package is complete with a ridiculous story, poor CGI, rigid acting and stereotypical character gallery. So no surprises on that account.

First of all let's look at the story. A group of people have been captured by a rich mad man for some reason which actually never comes to see the light of day. And they are to compete in his demented contests that include sharks and people dying one by one, if they are to survive and make it off the Island. Wow, really? Oh my, what originality and what creativity. Oscar worthy? Hardly so...

Then we have the CGI and special effects. Well, let's just say that it didn't even look like the people hired to do the effects were trying all that hard. Either that, or they didn't have enough money, training to do it better or the equipment to do it right with. I am guessing it was a lack of funding. The effects in "Shark Week" were atrocious actually, and at no point do you really buy into the effects. But of course, you already know what you went into here with a movie such as this.

Don't count on seeing anyone familiar or famous in this movie. And those people who were on the cast list, weren't exactly standing in line to harvest awards for this movie, let's just leave it at that.

The characters in the movie were one-dimensional and showed about as much personality as wet cardboard. So you never really rooted for anyone of the characters, nor did you care when one of them died in a most laughable way of questionable effects.

I do enjoy shark movies, and creature features in general, but the shark genre tend to be ridden with movies that are of questionable value and either lacks proper effects or just use actual footage of sharks in the ocean and then reverse pan the angle to differentiate on using the same shot over and over. "Shark Week" is hardly a noteworthy addition to the shark genre.

So why do we keep watching these movies? Well, on the off chance that they actually turn out to be a surprise and a hidden gem in a vast ocean of otherwise questionable movies. Or because there is just something amusing and perverse in sitting down to watch these laughable movies. Sometimes they are so bad that they actually are fun. "Shark Week" wasn't one of those times...

Novel idea features an eccentric worry-bead clutching millionaire who subjects a group of people to a perverted game in which they're hunted down by sharks to atone for the death of his son. Irish former leading man Bergin unfortunately has little to do but look intermittently distant or crazed, as he monitors the group's movements via CCTV. How he knows where to position the cameras - and the fact that they appear to move - is but one of the many questions this film prompts you to consider. Apart from Bergin, the only faces I recognised was Coker (who appears in other films by The Asylum), and Butler playing Bergin's highly aggressive girlfriend.

Abysmal CGI effects although there does appear to be at least one rubber shark if that makes any difference, most of the action occurs between the characters as the emerging friction causes tension and poor decision making leading to inevitable results. The poor sap in the Gucci flip flops who hands his fellow castaways shark teeth with which to make spears they'll use to defend themselves against the sharks is both a touching gesture, and a predictably feeble one as we soon discover.

Some of the situations imagined for Bergin's 'obstacle course' are vaguely interesting, but most are just hackneyed and repetitive taking place in a darkened cave. Puerile dialogue and continuity/ editing issues (note the constantly changing footwear worn by some of the cast, or the overhead power lines on the supposedly remote island) even if you're a shark attack movie devotee, 'Shark Week' is comically bad and one to avoid.

"Shark Week" from 2012 is like Saw with sharks, except the kidnapping victims here obediently trot from one shark trap to the next like lemmings, instead of just saying, "Nope, I'm not playing this stupid game anymore!" If they did, this idiotic shark challenge hostage horror trash would be over real quick.

No need for spoilers, the poster's tagline spells it all out: 7 Days, 7 Sharks, 1 Survivor.

Shark Week (2012)

** (out of 4)

Everyone's favorite studio, The Asylum, is back with their latest offering. A madman (Patrick Bergin) kidnaps the eight people he blames for his son's death and forces them to play a game. The game is that they must enter various stages where they have to fight a different breed of shark. SHARK WEEK comes from director Christopher Ray who had previously done 2-HEADED SHARK ATTACK so he's really putting his name on the genre. As for as films from The Asylum go, this here is probably one of the best from the studio but that's still not saying too much. I think the story here was actually a fairly interesting one, although there's no doubt that the producers were ripping off the SAW franchise and the Bergin character really comes across as a weak Jigsaw replacement. The story works for the most part because it's rather funny seeing humans having to battle sharks and it leads to some of the dumbest moments in any film I've seen this year. Just check out the various ways they try to fight the sharks and it leads to a really crazy final sequence against a Great White. Bergin really hams it up here but this is a good thing because his over-the-top performance at least makes you smile. The eight "players" don't feature Oscar-worthy performances but they're at least what you'd expect from a film like this. There are several problems with the film including the awful special effects. The effects are so bad but this is to be expected in a film like this. I understand they can't afford top-notch special effects but if this is the best you can do then there's no point of making a film because every time the sharks are on screen you really get taken out of the action because of how fake they look. Another problem is that out of the eight characters there's really no one to cheer for so you never really get caught up in their survival. Still, fans of "C" creature features should at least be entertained.