Shark Night

 I included my old review, as I almost always do these days, but I like to think my writing style has improved in at least description-form. I rarely call a character stupid, although Malik's decisions in the film had me just hurting inside because going after a hammerhead shark with one arm, later just letting himself fall in the water to be eaten, it left me shaking my head. I got that anger, though. Losing Maya obviously changed him, even more so than losing his arm. So I tried in this revisit to look at the story decision to have Malik make these decisions from that perspective of loss and pain. The film's whole "sharks released in Louisiana swamp by dirtbag fishermen locals and the scumbag sheriff for online snuff shark creeps attacking college kids on vacation at the invite of Sara Paxton" is as basic plotting as it gets, with the CGI sharks and effects as PG-13 as it gets. The rating isn't always a nuisance -- I dig "Happy Birthday 2 Me" and "The Shallows" -- but for a movie about a bunch of sharks, this film just goes towards that line without ever crossing it. Yes, it has some really cruel characters who decide to brutally murder innocent folks just swimming or water skiing, with Katherine McPhee especially departing the film in sick fashion, but Shark Night (2011) never quite achieves what past shark movies have. A good shark movie can be made for PG-13, though. But these sharks in Shark Night are just too CGI for my tastes. Even when one shark leaps out of the water -- that happens more than once -- in ridiculous fashion to take a victim off a jet ski. 1.5/5

The film is loaded with attractive people, while the villains, human and shark, are repellent.

IMDb user comments 

February 11, 2012

Look, I try to give any movie, like the PG-13 Shark Night 3 D, the benefit of the doubt despite this preconceived notion that it will probably stink. For a lot of horror fans, shark movies are like chum, we see blood, or the potential of blood, in the water with a ravenous, man-eating water predator on the rampage, as petite female and buff male bodies serve as menu options, and we can't help ourselves. I put the blame on Spielberg and Peter Benchley with Jaws. Every since this 77 classic hit theaters, VHS, and DVD, horror fans seem attracted to the recycled killer shark formula.

In the bayou, Tulane students go on a summer trip to one of the group's (Sara Paxton) lake estate and for some reason sharks of all varieties are loose and hungry. Anytime college kids go to a lake summer home it's a recipe for disaster, especially with freaky rednecks and a fishing trawler who are secretly killing off victims for an internet reality snuff program filming the murders for the audience willing to pay top dollar. CGI sharks galore and PG-13 violence, Shark Night (which takes place primarily during the day which tells you right away that all is not right with this movie) eschews the usual booze-partying and sex, having the African American star linebacker (Sinqua Walls) losing an arm while wave-riding gets hurt by a shark right away. Losing blood fast, he needs to go to a hospital, but the group is out in the middle of bayou country so their predicament is grave, to say the least. Chris Carmack and Joshua Leonard (the latter recognizable to fans of The Blair Witch Project) are a pair of repellent hick creeps who seem to be just antagonists, at first, later revealing their sinister natures to great length at the expense of former American Idol star Katharine McPhee (groomed for stardom for the NBC Broadway series, SMASH) and wise-cracking Joel David Moore (fun during his time in the movie). The huge sharks leap out of the water as if they were dolphins. None of the characters, including Paxton (the movie goes out of its way to establish that she is now a woman, as Sara remains in bikini practically the entire running time, not that I'm complaining, but it is rather apparent), are that interesting (I know, the characters service the film as chum for the water predators, but still I would like to have some sort of interest in their welfare), but Dustin Mulligan (as the handsome nerd who is Paxton's love interest) is rather resourceful and crafty (of course, the film has to have the "final guy" to come to the rescue of the "final girl"). I was quite amused at the convenience of having a zippo lighter when Mulligan faced being tiger shark lunch, and he seems able to swim freely throughout without barely a hint of danger. That's the problem, I don't think anyone believes (I sure didn't) that Paxton or Mulligan, despite the stack decked against them, will fall to either the Bayou scumbags or the sharks they "planted in the lake". Walls' behavior (going after a shark in revenge for the death of his sweetie or untying his body after his jet-skiing bro was about to get him to shore), in particular, is flat stupid, and the villains seem to talk on and on as Paxton and Mulligan could have been annihilated in quick and brutal fashion. The movie will fall quickly out of the minds of those who watch it, I think, because nothing about it is particularly that memorable except the villains who, to their credit (Joshua is a real Redneck freakshow, with teeth and hygiene, and filthy manners, the stand-out)certain to make your skin crawl. The violence doesn't come close to the bloody goods delivered by Aja just recently with his Piranha remake, proving here that tame CGI blood and lack of on screen grue doesn't help matters, either. Teasing the typical audience by having your female eye candy removing their tops with their backs to the camera so you are left to imagine what their boobs look like just further illustrates that Shark Night is all about not delivering instead of giving the usual fans what they expect.