Dir: John Pogue
Release Date: 2020
“Studying the effects of climate change off the coast of Mozambique, a marine biologist and her team confront three genetically enhanced bull sharks”
I’ll be honest and admit that I do love a good animal attack movie. Sadly, this isn’t one. The best thing I can say about this is that it is better than Deep Blue Sea 2 but the same could be said for a shit floating in a swimming pool so don’t hold that up as a recommendation.
We start with an aerial shot of 3 fins heading towards a ramshackle island which looks like it is made of garbage. We learn (from an attractive female scientist and vlogger called Emma) that this is ‘Little Happy’ in Mozambique, a man-made island where many people used to live but now only 2 remain (we’ll briefly meet them soon). She suggests that this is what Florida will soon look like if we don’t stop the climate change and then talks a bit about pollution and how we are all bastards for using stuff and that we will destroy everything and so on. She then takes us on a dive with her cameraman, Shaw, who appears to be an ex-Navy Seal who served under her father (she later uses this fact for some quality emotional blackmail which results in his death) and we get to see some nice scenery.
Suddenly a Great White swims straight at them until Emma puts her hand out and says “Back off, shark!”. The shark stops dead and just hangs there, still. Apparently, this is Sally, one of Emma’s oldest subjects. Sally is clearly in a bad mood as she still rams Emma into some coral (drawing blood but ignores it for some reason) while Emma slaps Sally’s nose like a puppy who has pissed on the floor. Sally fucks off and end of totally ridiculous scene.
I’ll get through this as quickly as I can now. Emma’s research team consists of Shaw, an I.T. geek called Spin and a young Japanese girl called Miya who is in a blossoming relationship with Spin. A ship turns up full of hunky men looking for the 3 sharks we saw at the beginning. One is Emma’s ex, called Richard, and he is also a scientist. The others just hang around. The biggest guy is called Lucas and Australian – he is important. Emma and Richard have a chat about how massively unlikely it is that they would meet again in these circumstances and then they get straight back to flirting and remain totally oblivious to the massive shark that swims past the ironically named observation window.
Back to doing some diving and they have those propulsion motors only none of them are on!!
They are kicking their legs like bastards and you can see they are all turned off.
Some of them are carrying tranquiliser darts and others what appear to be Nerf guns!?
Anyway, Emma sees some recent kills of Great Whites when a guy approaches with seemingly the only working prop motor. They watch his approach until they notice he is cut in half.
Extreme close up of Shaw having massively wide surprised eyes. A film highlight in my opinion.
Emma manages to sedate one of the Bulls at the EXACT moment that it bites her ex. Thankfully (I guess) it is an instant sedative and knocks the shark out before it can even bite down and they find him lying limp in its mouth on the bottom of the ocean. He is rescued because he’s not been in it long and wakes up to resume flirting.
They also take the sedated shark so they can explain more of the ‘plot’.
Before that though, the one remaining male Islander (his wife, Nandi, is the other Islander) goes fishing and dives in so he can be eaten by some CGI. Only his arm is found. In his net. By Nandi.
Anyway, the plot, such as it is, traces the 3 Bull Sharks back to the 2nd film but gets interrupted by the 2 remaining sharks headbutting the window. Thankfully, Richard knows what to do and stands on deck, pointing a harpoon at the captured Bull and yells at the other 2 to, “Back the fuck off!”. Totally unbelievably, they do exactly that and for the second time, sharks just stay still in the water.
We now get another update on the plot where we get a reference to the original Deep Blue Sea movie, mentioning some bullshit about super shark brains and that they now have to kill the Bulls or they will totally destroy the Ocean eco system. The I.T. geek says “Seamageddon” and, at this point, I put it on the record that I would 100% watch a film with that title.
Anyway, after hearing the attempt at the plot, the big Aussie guy called Lucas now decides to kill the sharks with a mine and everyone else while he’s at it so he gets his Nerf gun out and starts blowing shit up.
Lots of explosions, most of the island sinks and we get the idea that Lucas is no good.
Richard confronts Lucas back on his ship and gives a moving speech ending with “I would rather die with her (Emma) than live like you”. He then dives straight into a breaching/flying shark’s mouth and dies.
Good.
Then follows a classic scene of Lucas and Shaw downing weapons to fight like men and it appears that Lucas is in fact a decent Martial Artist.
Elsewhere, the geek and his girlfriend get eaten (Spin confirmed, Miya suggested).
MMA fight ends when another henchman joins in and Lucas runs away. Shaw lifts henchman 2 in air, like in Dirty Dancing, and his head is bitten clean off by another breaching/flying shark.
Emma takes the mine and dives back in, threatening the sharks when they instantly advance upon her, marking the 3rd time sharks just float totally still (a new record for stupid shark behaviour) instead of attacking.
Shaw distracts them by pumping blood from the neck stump of the guy whose head got eaten and throwing his corpse back into the sea. He then says the best line of the film. See below for that one*. Emma gets back on the island where it is just her, Shaw and Nandi left.
Lucas laughs back on the ship and presses the mine trigger.
WAIT!
Emma attached the mine to his ship so it explodes and sinks in 5 seconds. She then explains some shit about a GPS beacon that will get the Bulls to come back so they can kill them. Shaw basically says ‘fuck that’ but she mentions her father and he seems obliged to help. Sharks return Shaw dives in and amazingly blows up 2 sharks with handheld explosive tipped darts as they simultaneously attack him.
Obviously, he also dies. He is not mourned which seems odd.
I wish we had a flashback to his massive eyes but we do not.
Turns out that Lucas is not dead and he reappears all burned up and shit to beat Emma up. He has a knife but states that this would be too easy so places it nearby so he can be killed with it in a couple of minutes.
Instead of the easy option of the knife, he decides to drown Emma by just holding her head under water.
This is clearly a much more manly way to kill a woman.
WAIT!!!
Nandi distracts him and Emma kills him with his own knife after all.
The remaining shark is killed by very slowly using a compactor which we never saw until now and Emma apologises to the shark.
Emma and Nandi sail away on a shit boat and have a bit of a laugh.
They come across a floating cabinet which is identified as one from the island. Emma opens the door and Miya jumps out shouting,
“You not shark!”.
I guess, had it been a shark who opened the cabinet door, she would have confirmed the opposite.
Suddenly, Sally the Great White emerges from the sea. I wish she had winked to us all but she just submerged again. They all sail off into nowhere. Aerial scene of the ocean. THE END!
FAVOURITE CHARACTER: Lucas for his unexpected Martial Arts prowess
FAVOURITE MOMENT:
FAVOURITE LINE:
(After throwing decapitated body into shark infested waters)
Shaw: Sorry, chum
FAVOURITE DEATH: Richard diving into shark mouth