Shark Night 3D

Did I expect quality walking into a movie called Shark Night 3D? Of course not. But, I did expect some B-Movie fun, which this movie comes up in surprisingly short supply. The film's director is David R. Ellis, who made Snakes on a Plane. That movie was certainly no masterpiece, but it was at least energetic in its silliness. This movie manages to be limp all the way through, even when it's trying to have fun at its own expense.

If you've ever seen a "when animals attack" exploitation film, you already know the set up. A bunch of college students (mostly played by actors who look to be in their late 20s and early 30s) leave the campus to party for the weekend at a secluded luxury home in the middle of the Louisiana bayou. The seven young heroes are your typical stereotypes (the black guy, the Latino, the geek, the jock, etc.), so that we can immediately know what role they're supposed to play in the film, and also so that screenwriters Will Hayes and Jesse Studenberg don't have to spend any more time developing them than they absolutely have to. The owner of the house is the pretty blonde girl of the group (Sara Paxton), who surprisingly, gets to play her character pretty nice. (The blonde is usually the "bitch" of the group in these movies.) She introduces her friends to some of the locals, like a pair of psychotic rednecks, and a dim-witted sheriff (Donal Logue), then they set about partying, and diving into the water.

It does not take too long for the sharks to make their first appearance, and for the first victim to get their arm chomped off. The kids are naturally curious about what sharks are doing in these parts of the waters, and immediately make a rule that nobody should go into the water. Of course, if that happens, we don't have a movie, so the screenplay comes up with a lot of ways for the kids to go back into the water, and get hunted down by the large number of sharks that have suddenly descended onto the bayou seemingly overnight. At one point, one of the kids manages to wrestle with and kill a shark, and discovers that there is some kind of camera tracking equipment on it. So, someone is responsible for this. No prizes for guessing that it's the evil rednecks, who have played no real role in this movie up to this point, and who's evil scheme is to make their personal snuff films by releasing sharks into the water, and filming them killing innocent people.

It's at this point that Shark Night stops being strictly an animal exploitation film, and turns into some kind of weird hybrid of animal exploitation and torture porn. The villains get off on the bloody footage, and know that people will pay big money to watch it. Up to this point, the film was really dumb, but once the villains reveal their plan, it becomes really dumb, nasty, and mean-spirited. Why did the filmmakers feel the need to add a scuzzy plot element like this in a movie that's rated PG-13, knowing kids can watch it? I have a feeling that it was thrown in strictly for shock value alone, as the movie has no other jolts to speak of. Instead of creating tension or fear, the movie takes the low road, and just goes scuzzy on us.

Not that I was really liking the movie all that much up to that point. This is a low-rent movie all the way through. The underwater shark footage (which is made up mostly of unconvincing animatronics, and even more unconvincing CG) is murky and uninspired. There are no moments where we feel any genuine excitement watching the creatures. They just swim toward the camera, then we see one of the actors suddenly start frantically thrashing about, pretending they're being dragged under. The actors at least seem to know what kind of movie they're in, and chew the scenery appropriately enough. But the script often leaves them with nothing to do, not even a character to play. Usually in movies like this, an actor is at least guaranteed a somewhat memorable death scene, but thanks to the PG-13 rating, most of the attacks are strangely bloodless.

The movie closes with a tongue in cheek rap video that plays after the end credits are finished. It features the cast recapping the events of the film, and is a lot more entertaining than the 90 minutes that followed before it. They should have taken a cue from this sequence, and just had fun with the material. This is a lifeless thriller that simply does not work.

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