Director: Hayley Easton Street
Year: 2024
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Sharks
Plot:
Attending a special marriage ceremony, a group of friends trying to get through a traumatic incident in their past at a lavish resort where they decide to take a trip together to sort out their issues, but when an accident strands them in the water they find themselves hunted by a ravenous killer shark.
Review:
Overall, this was a solid if somewhat underwhelming genre effort. One of the better features here is the strong first half setting everything up as a way of getting to know the group of friends here. The early tragedy that split them up and the wedding that brings them back together comes off well enough as this takes a rather heartbreaking real-life occurrence to split up the one couple and uses that as a way of building up the kind of strain between them that feels logical why they’re not where they used to be. With the marriage celebration proving to get the job done when they arrive and get to the island which is all enough here to get to know who they are, what they’ve become, and follow along with what they’re attempting to accomplish during the trip.
That sets up some intriguing enough series of survival thriller scenarios that are presented throughout here. The first attack on the group which forces them to make a fateful trip back to shore only to get stranded when an accident forces them into the water where they find the shark that initially started everything is following the group as they try to make it back to safety. These first action scenes offer the kind of chilling real-world scenarios where the means through which they have to get out of the situation only to find a new one has popped up which requires attention is all fun enough even without the few shark attacks that are quite brutal and graphic for this type of feature. With a fun finale offering some decent action and thrills along the way, this one comes off rather well.
There are some big flaws with this one that hold it down. The biggest issue with the film is that its storyline construction offering up the kind of setup it has means that it falls prey to the slew of issues playing every one of the similar types of films in this style. The whole idea of the group going through the kind of idiotic decision-making that continually places everyone in the situation they are in through mistakes and stupidity is a major factor here, keeping everything from generating the kind of suspense it really should have. On top of that, the sharks themselves are presented far more as an obstacle to overcome on their journey back to land rather than anything else as none of the encounters have that sense of danger a killer shark film is supposed to have at its core. These all manage to bring the film down for the most part.
Overview: ***/5
A rather fun survival thriller/killer shark film, there’s enough here to be quite likable and enjoyable even if it’s let down by several detrimental features that are present with this one. Those that are fine with this type of style or are hardcore killer shark film fanatics will want to give it a shot while others that don’t enjoy this kind of approach should heed caution.
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