Look at them buns! Wedgied buns. Side buns. Sandy buns. Wet buns. Covered in blood buns. That last one, maybe not so hot.
An actual shark film that wasn’t made by The Asylum. Interesting…
I actually had to look up who Blake Lively was, because I had no idea. I’ve never watched Gossip Girl, so…
I’m guessing she is more known for being married to Ryan Reynolds?
This review is brought to you by GoPro. GoPro, we help you to easily film shark attacks.
Blake Lively plays Nancy. We meet Nancy as she is being driven out to a secluded part of a Mexican island… or something like that. She’s in Mexico, they speak Spanish and she’s the only white girl who doesn’t speak the language.
She wants to surf this secluded place because this was where her mom went when she was her age. Her mon is now dead, succumbing to a long battle with cancer. We only see all this through pictures on her iPhone. I was kind of getting Unfriended flashbacks whenever they used her phone to give us more character background.
Nancy has left medical school to travel and surf. The medical school thing comes into play later.
Nancy surfs a few waves, is warned about a few things by some local surfers. Don’t go around this one area because of some narly reef that makes you feel like your skin is on fire. Also, some shallow areas with sharp rocks once the tide pulls back. I don’t know the lingo, I haven’t been to a beach since 1999. I know the date because that’s when the new Filter album came out and was listening to it nonstop the whole time.
There are a few montages of them surfing, it gets late and the two locals head back. But Nancy wants to stay and surf some more.
That is when she notices a dead whale being snacked on by a shark. Okay, how do you miss the giant dead whale? How did anyone of them miss that? It’s a whale, you’d think your eye or at least your nose would be drawn to it.
That’s when we meet two new characters. The shark and Steven Seagull. A bird that has his wing damaged during an attack.
While checking out the dead whale, she runs into Mr. Shark. Mr. Shark is kind of a dick. No, not like the z-grade shlocko film Dickshark.
Mr. Shark has a vendetta against humans it seems. It isn’t like he’s hungry, there’s a giant dead whale just waiting to be snacked on. But Mr. Sharky wants them surfer buns.
They actually managed to give the shark motivation by putting a hook in its mouth. Just by that you get the sense he was attacked by humans, got away but now wants to kill all humans.
It’s no Orca, where the killer whale watches as fishermen capture and gut his pregnant mate. Now that’s motivation.
I really like killer shark movies. The problem being, there really aren’t that many of them out there that are any good. Mostly you have Jaws and the many many terrible ripoff films that came after it. And it pretty much ends there.
Like I mentioned before, The Asylum has mostly corned the market with terrible shark movies. Mostly killing the genre with their Sharknado films. Though some might argue the last two Jaws films did that.
There are a few that do shine through all the piles of garbage. Like the Australian film Bait. Even Open Water, featuring a more realistic tale of what would happen if you were stranded out in the ocean with a shark.
And if you’re desperate, there’s always Shark Night. A film that had like a few weeks until release and still didn’t have a title. The director just wanted to call it Shark Attack Movie or something idiotic like that.
So Nancy gets attacked by Mr. Shark, biting her leg. He must have just nicked it because all she has is like this small gash on her leg. They make it seem pretty serious, but obviously they couldn’t show too much, this being PG-13 and all.
I won’t rant too much about the rating. It was a bit more bloody than I thought it would be, but still very tame. All the kills are off camera, most of the time it just cuts away to show the expression on Blake Lively’s face as she is watching it all happen. You know, would be nice to see some of this too, know you.
We do get a tiny moment where this stereotypical drunk Mexican wakes up from a hangover and steal Nancy’s stuff on the beach, even going after her surfboard. That is when he gets attacked, having his lower torso wash ashore with his upper torso. Oddly enough without any blood.
Nancy takes a small ride on the dead whale as Mr. Shark knocks it around. After getting knocked off, she swims to the shallows. That is when she is joined by her bird pal Steven Seagull. Who does make it out alive by the way. You’d think they’d pull another Deep Blue Sea and have the bird get eaten. But nope, he lives to poop on a car for another day.
Now the film is just her in some rocks for 40+ minutes. She has this nasty gash on her leg, though like I said, if she was attacked by this shark she wouldn’t still have a leg. She uses her earrings and necklace to help sew up the wound.
See, told you that medical training would come back into play at some point.
She even helps Steven Seagull get his dislocated wing back in place.
Now it’s mostly just the writer trying to figure out how to get her off this rock so we don’t fall asleep.
I’ve only ever seen one other film written by this guy, Anthony Jaswinski. He did a film called Kristy, can’t remember if I did a review of it or not… but I recommend checking the film out. It was pretty good.
Oh wait, I also saw his other film Vanishing on 7th Street, that was not very good, and I don’t recommend checking that out.
The director, a few hits and a few misses. Though most of his films have starred Liam Neeson. Now I kind of wish this film had Liam Neeson stranded on some rocks, punching a shark.
So what did I think of the film? It wasn’t bad. It didn’t amaze me or have me on the edge of my seat, there weren’t any scares or too many surprises, and you kind of predict everything that is going to happen. The fact you never see any of the shark’s kills is also a bit disappointing. The CGI shark wasn’t too bad.
Blake Lively was very attractive, but that was about it for her character. Look at my buns!
Final verdict?
It was OK. Best shark movie since Bait, I guess. If you like shark attack movies, sure, go see this one. Just don’t get too upset you don’t actually see the shark attack anyone.
Want more helpful screenwriting tips and movie/script reviews? Follow this link to our Discussion Forum.
And be sure to check out our Notes Service, where I give my detailed thoughts and suggestions on your script.
