How Dare You! "Deep Blue Sea 2"

Deep Blue Sea 2 (2018)

Rated R

Starring Danielle Savre, Rob Mayes, Michael Beach, Aaron Ellroy, Nathan Lynn,

Directed by Darin Scott

The Story:

A billionaire decides to do some experimenting on sharks... and chaos ensues!

Come on folks, this premise works great.

See: Jurassic Park.
See: Deep Blue Sea.

See?

As I've well documented over the years, when a new shark movie comes along, I'm always looking to add it to the pile and give it a try.

Most of the time, even if it's not a great movie, I appreciate that it was made and I have a good enough time to justify spending 90 minutes on a low budget B movie.

In the last few years, I've even been rewarded with some pretty good shark movies to boot!

When I saw the trailer for Deep Blue Sea 2, I was amused that it seemed like it was going to be a note for note remake of the original film.

Well, how bad could that be, because I absolutely love the first one!

Yet it wasn't... and I didn't.

Everything that was great about the first one was missing from this tired retread.

They got nothing right for that matter, except for sharks gnawing on people... and even that wasn't very well done.

No stars of any caliber at all... wooden performances...

Not one bit of interesting plot or action...

It made 90 minutes feel like a 3 hour tour of the worst kind.

Had they called it any other cheesy shark movie name, I may have been kinder.

But when you hang an anchor around a fun franchise and sully its good name, I'm less kind.

Is It Finally Safe To Go Back In The Water? "47 Meters Down"

47 Meters Down (2017)

Rated PG-13

Starring Mandy Moore, Claire Holt, Chris Johnson, Yani Gellman, Santiago Segura, Matthew Modine

Written and Directed by Johannes Roberts

The Story:

Two sisters (Moore & Holt) on vacation in Mexico decide to go out on a boat and take a trip in a shark cage to see sharks up close and personal. I sure hope that cage doesn't sink or anything...

I want to like shark movies.

I think everyone that has read these reviews has gathered that about me by this point in time.

Good, bad or mediocre, I often try them all, or at least attempt to.

I'm guessing with the commercial, and critical success of The Shallows, studios are jumping back into the waters of monster movies because we will always be fascinated and a little scared of what lies beneath the surface of the ocean.

In theory, the movie hits most of the right notes.

Lots of jump scares with musical cues, just like Jaws.

But make no mistake, this isn't that good.

It's watchable, yet predictable.

That isn't good, especially given that they use 2 different tension devices in the film:

killer sharks
low air supply

Poor to stupid choices being made by everyone in the film makes you often throw up your hands in disgust that by the time you reach the finale...

And then find out that much of what you have just witnessed may not have even happened.

It's often an effective plot device, but here it was just a final nail in the coffin.

This one won't be joining our annual list of scary films to ring in the holiday season for Halloween.

This makes me want to find out what happened next in the Sharknado series.

:)

Final Grade:  C

Just When You Thought It Was Finally Safe..."The Shallows"

The Shallows (2016)  

Rated PG-13

Starring Blake Lively

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

The Story:

Nancy (Lively) goes out surfing at a secluded beach where her mom once tore up the waves. When a few other surfers head to shore, Nancy decides to try for one more wave.

Clearly Nancy has not grown up watching shark movies!

:)

Arguably, this is one of the best shark movies since Jaws, and I've sat through enough of them to know what I'm talking about here.

Collet-Serra breaks from his usual thrillers with Liam Neeson to direct a thriller with a killer shark instead.

Apparently Liam Neeson wasn't available to play the part of the killer shark.

So instead, this is all about Nancy and her fight for survival just a few hundred yards off shore and safety.

Thankfully she went to medical school, so she will be able to tend to her wounds to keep her from simply bleeding to death and making the movie rather boring.

The film follows very much in Spielberg's shoes by letting a lot of the killer shark go unseen, and just ratchet the tension by knowing he's out there, waiting, and there's nothing our human protagonist can do about it.

So that leaves Lively to carry the film, and she does so quite admirably. Put in a bikini and stuck on a rock for most of the film, she does her best to run the gamut of emotions and keep you enthralled with her desperate plight.

At the end, there's got to be a showdown between human and monster, and while it may be a little over-the-top, this is B-movie thriller/monster movie and the conclusion works perfectly for the film.

Overall, I was very entertained from start to finish, and someday I'll add it to the film library.

Final Grade: B+