Director: Xavier Gens
Year: 2024
Country: France
Alternate Titles: Sous la Seine
Genre: Sharks
Plot:
Years after a horrific accident, a former diver is shocked to learn the deadly shark she was involved with that killed her crew years ago is loose in the Seine River while the city is gearing up for a massive swim meet at the location and must band others together to save the city and stop the shark.
Review:
This was a fantastically fun and likable feature. One of the better aspects of this one is the rather enjoyable setup that features a lot of likable factors to tell a solid story about the environmental issues and the creature feature action. The main storyline about the race to get the shark out of the river once it reappears following the years away from the location and bringing her back into the fold to save the shark from the authorities trying to get the city ready for their Olympic trials sets the main feature here, going along rather well. With the whole thing being wrapped in a fantastic, environmentally-conscious message about preserving sharks for future generations, this gets a lot to like with a topical message as well as providing some great backstory about the group and the mission to stop it before the ceremony occurs.
That allows for the film to feature some rather fun shark action throughout. With the main setup here being the backstory about her initial encounter with the tagged shark that features the attack on her old diving crew while trying to clear out a distressed whale stuck in a fishing net, this starts the film out incredibly well, featuring a strong starting sequence. Showing the group getting to interact with the whale carcass before the main interactions with the shark, which appears to take out the group in graphic fashion, which comes with a great series of confrontations involving the shark coming out of nowhere to grab a victim. This comes across nicely with the fine scenes of the creatures inside the river system, where they notice it while trying to perform their dives and attempting to warn others due to its presence on their equipment, to no avail.
Once it becomes apparent they’re right and the shark is clearly in the river, there’s a tremendous amount of fun present here, where the slew of attacks that carry on inside the underwater catacombs of the city provide no end to the fun. The first big attack while trying to test the theory that they’re there provides an absolutely frenetic series of encounters where the different tactics presented by the different sharks here give this a truly enjoyable style of ambushes and bodies getting torn apart as there’s the outright chaos of the situation fueling an incredible scene. That is pretty much the case where the rest of this one focuses on the race to stop the shark from getting to the swimming meet, resulting in untold chaos with the creature attacks and the ensuing destruction of the city that follows. These all end up bringing about a fantastic series of features to like about it.
There aren’t too many flaws present, but there are a few minor factors. The main drawback of this one is the slightly underwhelming setup that involves a bit too much in the environmental safety setup that goes on in the first half, which slows the pacing down just slightly. Although there’s nothing inherently wrong with the material present, seeing the theories about the sharks invading the polluted water or advancing to the area simply to escape this situation is a bit of a drag on things when the endless meetings on the matter or convincing others not to get in the water, as that all keeps this one down. As well, there’s also the whole factor about the film carrying on simply because of stupidity rather than anything to do with the creature itself, so it can be a bit frustrating witnessing the action carry on because the crew doesn’t listen to reason, but beyond these factors, there’s not much to dislike.
Overview: ****/5
One of the finest modern genre efforts possible, there’s quite a lot to really enjoy here that makes this one stand out enough to overcome the few detrimental aspects present in this one. Those with an appreciation for this style of genre fare, who are general fans of cheesy creature features or fans of killer shark films, will have a lot to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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