Director: Adrian Grunberg
Year: 2023
Country: US/Dominican Republic/Mexico
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Sharks
Plot:
Taking a family vacation together, a worker at an oil rig in the ocean off the coast of Mexico finds that the area is abandoned after fears from the locals that a massive shark is loose in the area, and after learning the truth about the situation are forced to stop the creature before it devastates the area.
Review:
This was a generally disappointing killer shark effort. Among the few likable factors to be had with this one are the sequences relating to the shark showing up and interacting with the group around the rig. With a great amount of folklore attempted to introduce the creatures' presence and appearance in the area surrounding its ties to local legend serving as a great foundation, the action scenes here surrounding the attack on the crew trying to investigate the crumbling rig where it attacks the submersible underwater or knocking people into the water. Kept to brief, barely thrilling scenes even at its best, there's not a whole lot here involving the spectacle of the shark coming after and killing them even if these serve as the most fun to be had with this one.
That leaves the film with several big flaws to keep it down. The main drawback to the film is a decidedly convoluted setup that manages to wrap together a slew of different storylines that are brought together incredibly haphazardly. Featuring political drama in the means through which the devastation of the environment was brought about that goes to such an overbearing degree it’s almost insultingly preachy, a family drama about the work he’s doing keeping them apart to the point of straining the relationship, and a brief bit about the local legend about the sharks’ origins all coming together in one place, there’s a lot of beats here and subplots coming off this that are fine when taken on their own but just make for a jumbled mess trying to keep everything straight.
That ends up highlighting one of the most crucial factors against this one in that, due to all these storylines taking centerstage in the film, the pacing to this one is so excruciating and dull that it’s hard to really care about it most of the time. Featuring a lot of the running time taken up with the two main storylines here, namely the family tension and environmental damage his company is causing, manage to make this one feel so bereft of shark action it’s no wonder the scenes are kept to barely last more than a minute. These scenes aren’t so bad but they’re so short and barely memorable that it’s mainly down to how lifeless the other segments of the film are which leaves it feeling like the shark is an afterthought in its own movie. Combined, these manage to lower this one significantly.
Overview: */5
An overall disappointing and almost virtually worthless killer shark effort, the fact that this one opted for the wrong kind of content and then overloaded on that makes for a highly underwhelming genre effort. Really only look into this one if you're a killer shark movie completist as the negatives here should warn away most others that might be interested in this one.
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