Shark Night [Blu-Ray]

David R. Ellis

BY Robert BellPublished Jan 18, 2012

To be candid, the only reason that a film like Shark Night even exists is because The Final Destination – a movie the succeeded financially based on little more than creative 3D kills – surpassed studio expectations in August 2009. So, someone hired the same director to do ostensibly the same thing with a piecemeal script seemingly thrown together on the fly, only making sharks the villains rather than Death's design. And considering that the only expectation of a movie about bland, interchangeable college kids being eaten by sharks during a spring break getaway is that it appeals on a visceral and sickly comic level, the inability to do so makes it little more than an embarrassing moot point. Although surely someone will find humour in a 3D shark jumping out of the water and eating someone midair on a jet ski. Similarly, the surprising mobility and strength of someone recently dismembered makes for some good derisive laughter. Beyond this, there's little going on of note as the plot really is that of a dorky guy (Dustin Milligan) being unexpectedly invited to a spring fling weekend with the campus hottie (Sara Paxton), only to wind up as the ersatz hero when some sharks and rednecks – city people need to be afraid of backwards country folk – stir up a bit of trouble. The kids get killed off one by one while Sara Paxton and Katharine McPhee run around in bikinis, occasionally doling out self-conscious one-liners like, "My eyes are up here." What's worse is that there's some misguided and hypocritical subtext about how amoral Shark Week specials and reality television are. Unless viewers have a 3D television at home and feel like paying the extra money for the 3D Blu-Ray so they can laugh at the terribly animated sharks flying out of the screen, there's no point to waste any time with this one. Although, the studio was smart enough to include a supplement that literally edits down the movie to a montage of kill sequences, understanding exactly what it is that viewers are looking for from a film like this.
(eOne)

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