Movie Review: Shark Night 3D (2011)

I actually saw this movie a week ago and am just now writing a review. Me a slacker. Me admit it.

Oh, Shark Night. You could have been sooooo much better. And yet, you were one of the biggest disappointments this year for me. In Shark Night, a group of college friends travels to pretty girl Sarah's remote island home on a local lake. Ready for a weekend of fun, their plans are soon screeched to a halt by the discovery of several sharks in the water. 

The first question about this movie of course is why the hell are there freaking sharks in a lake? Well, I'll tell you. The first possible explanation given is because it is a salt water lake, it's possible that recent hurricanes could have relocated the sharks by washing them over a dam or something. Okay, I might buy that. THEN, we find out that the real reason is something different entirely. The bad guys in the movie (and it's not hard to spot who they are) have brought the sharks into the lake so that they can film the monsters eating people and sell the footage online. Because everybody loves Shark Week. Yeah.

While this diabolical plan is on the one hand kind of hokey and ridiculous, I like it. For one thing, it solves the plot problem that befalls any Animals Run Amok movie having to do with water animals - if there's a killer shark or whatever in the water, don't go in the water. Problem solved. But, if you have some crazy bastards throwing you in the water and feeding you to the sharks, then you have a movie. So I actually didn't mind that aspect of the film because it turned out to be a good way to keep our main characters in danger when they could have just stayed out of the water. 

Despite the PG-13 rating, I was still mostly expecting from Shark Night a film along the lines of Piranha, minus most of the excessive gore and boobs, of course. Just a fun, action-filled movie with some sharks eating people, which I love (Deep Blue Sea... I'm thinking of you here, baby). But somehow Shark Night got it wrong. The action is minimal and the cliches abound. We've got crazy racist townies, the twist of the good guy who's really a bad guy, and a guy who thinks it's all noble to feed himself to the sharks after they've killed his true love. Blah. The gore is also quite minimal and had the film been rated R and put in a few more buckets of blood and intestines, I (and everyone else) probably would have liked it a lot more.  

The obvious CGI sharks took me out of it a bit. Have filmmakers just completely said "fuck you" to practical effects because you can build whatever you want on a computer? Or does it make the 3D stuff easier? I don't know, but CGI sharks have nothing on the real McCoy mainly because the facial mannerisms and body movements just don't look that genuine. 

As for the 3D aspect... I didn't love it. I'm already way over the 3D craze, and while it's a different way to watch a movie, it's usually not as cool as the advertisements make it out to be. The only cool 3D part in Shark Night is when one of the shark's face takes up the whole screen and it's pokey head appears to be coming out the screen at you. 

There's no real emotion in the film, whether dramatic or comedic. It tries to be funny throughout but never got a laugh or a chuckle out of me. Bad jokes, though, not bad acting. Most of the actors are alright, and pretty natural in their roles but I wouldn't say that this would be a hard movie to act in. I liked the main bad guy, Sarah's crazy ex-BF, and the water sheriff, Donal Logue, is one of my favorite character actors. Always loved his stuff. 

So despite the promise of some fun romping around with sharks, Shark Night turns out to be lackluster. There is no climactic ending, even when the "big" shark makes its appearance. Sarah's in the shark cage, Big Momma shark comes a-charging, and then it gets killed. Hm. It took 2 hours for three men to kill Jaws and about 2 minutes for two college kids to kill a similar shark. Kind of lame. There are a few good moments here and there but overall, a disappointment Shark Night is, as Yoda would say. 

A question I still have for this movie: Is freaking Sarah Paxton ever going to get dressed??? 

My Love Letter to Deep Blue Sea (1999)

Dearest Deep Blue Sea,

I love you. I just don't know how else to put it. I am hopelessly and completely in love with you. Nothing gets this little horror girl more excited than a movie about animals eating people, so you were kind of in my cool book before I even saw you. But then I finally did see you... and it was love at first sight.

I remember when I first saw you. Sitting in a dark theater, Cherry Coke in hand, I was giddy with excitement about a shark-eating-people movie. Super excited. And you starred Samuel L. Jackson, Thomas Jane, and freaking LL Cool J, which immediately made me think that you were going to be awesome. Then the lights dimmed, the titles floated onto the screen, and that kick ass music of yours started up. Suddenly, I became one with your awesomeness.

I mean, you are probably the best example of a typical B-type horror movie that is also pretty fucking great and more than a little enjoyable on repeated viewings. You have sharks... lots of big, mean, smart sharks and to be honest, who could not find enjoyment out of that? Even if someone is terrified of sharks, I bet they still like to watch them eat people on screen.

I love you more than Jaws. I KNOW, right? How do you stand up against such a classic, you ask? Because you are just so much damn FUN! Jaws is of course fantastic, but you've got something really special going for you and that is your sense of humor but also your sense of seriousness at the same time which is a hard thing to accomplish.

Your dialogue is mostly great but at other times fantastically cheesy. And I love cheese, the real kind and the horror-movie-bad-dialogue kind. You tried to be all cute with the water references and stuff, didn't you? Oh you naughty beast! Having your characters say things like "that's doesn't float" or "I don't make waves"... I dig that, I really do. I may initially scoff at the ridiculousness, but inside I secretly love it, I'm not ashamed to admit.

And I have to say, thank you so much for starring Thomas Jane. He was cute in The Sweetest Thing and all, but here you have him soaking wet for most of the movie (swoon!) and being a badass "shark wrangler" that is ultimately the hero of the whole piece. Sure, you have him falling down a lot (seriously, watch yourself and count how many times Thomas Jane falls down... what are you trying to do to this amazing man?) but he comes through time and again, helping the other people to safety and managing to avoid getting eaten the whole time.

Of course your most amazing part is when you have a shark jump out of the water and devour Samuel L. Jackson. Then two sharks are fighting over his body and his severed leg twitches for a second right in front of us. I mean, that was so amazing! You pretty much scored all the cool points in the world with that little bit. Although I think I saw that whole coming when he started making that speech... a cool movie like you would never let such serious speechifying go on for too long without someone getting bit in half.

And let's not forget the shark-o-vision. Movies with killer animals usually like to include some shots from the animal's point of view and you are no exception! The blurry-edged shark-o-vision swimming through the water, swimming through doors, seeking out Saffron Burrows or LL Cool J (or LL Cool J's bird), it's a bit cheesy like some of your dialogue but I can't blame you for not being able to resist the temptation.

Sure, you left me with some weird questions. Like, did Preacher really name his bird "Bird"? And how lame is that? After Tom Jane goes into the underwater tunnels and tranqs the shark, how did he get that big bitch onto the loading dock to the lab? Why would the fact that the sharks got smarter suddenly give them the ability to swim backwards? We've had this discussion before on my blog about Jaws 3 when the shark swims backwards out of the filtration pipe - it is physically impossible for them to do that, and their mental acuity would have no bearing on that. But honestly, that's all cool. It's all just little things that I've noticed about you over the 73849849 times I have watched you. It's not fair to nitpick, I know, and I hope you'll forgive me.

So, Deep Blue Sea, I hope this letter finds you well. I see you sitting there on my bookshelf, between Death Proof and The Departed, and I know I'll be pulling you down soon to once again bask in your glorious beauty. You are truly awesome and don't ever let anyone tell you different.

Sincerely,
Michele