What's one word that is terrifying and also entertaining that could jolt you out of your chair and is appropriate for this movie to come out in the summer time? SHARK! The Shallows last year did not thrill me as much because I felt they did not inject so much tension when the shark becomes closer to Blake Lively's character and it becomes cartoonish and the movie becomes a bit forgettable. I mean it's a solid cable watch. Now, we have a shark movie in which it involves two women stuck inside the cage 47 meters down into the ocean with oxygen running out in the air tanks and shark are surrounding them. Now, that is scary. This movie will tingle your spine as the director films this movie like it is hell in the water and that is enough for me to say this is a suspenseful B-movie that will get you to munch on your popcorn repeatedly.
Lisa (Mandy Moore) and Kate (Claire Holt) are sisters vacationing in Mexico. Lisa is distraught because her boyfriend has dumped her because she was not exciting enough for him. To bring Lisa out of her cold zone, Kate drags Lisa to a party to have some fun with two men, Louis and Benjamin (Yani Gellman and Santiago Segura). After having a little bit of a fling, Louis and Benjamin tell Lisa and Kate about shark diving, which they do with their friend, Taylor (Matthew Modine). Kate urges Lisa to try it out with her and she reluctantly gives in.
They meet the two friends and Taylor the next day, who is the captain of the boat with a rusty shark cage. Taylor asks them if they have been scuba diving before, which both of them claim they have. As Louis and Benjamin go inside the shark cage, Lisa and Kate get dressed into their scuba gear. Before both Lisa and Kate go in, Taylor informs them of the equipment, including an oxygen meter that tells them how much they have left. Kate and Lisa go into the cage and Taylor's first mate dumps some fish blood to attract the sharks. Suddenly, the line holding the cage breaks sending the cage 47 meters down. The two sisters panic as they cannot contact Taylor but when Lisa gets a little bit of contact while swimming up to the surface, Taylor urges her and her sister to stay in the cage for the time being until they find a way to rescue them.
This movie was B-level fun. About every summer, I consider one or two movies to be a guilty pleasure and I think this is the first movie to do so because both sisters try everything to get out of a situation that is threatening their lives regarding oxygen running out and great white sharks circling around them. There is tension throughout most of the movie as both sisters are hallucinating for a good portion of the movie where you cannot distinguish which is reality and which is fiction. The shark attacks are brutal but sometimes the CGI can be a little silly as the movie is in the level of Syfy Channel camp.
Mandy Moore and Claire Holt do not deliver breakout performances but they do a good job of getting invested in the characters as both sisters have different personalities. Plus, you care about them as they are in peril for most of the movie and bring in emotional heft. And, some of the actions they perform make sense to the movie. The movie moves along at a brisk pace thanks to director Johannes Roberts. However, he does cheat towards the end to make you think it goes for one ending but then switches to another ending. I kind of hate that ever since that movie Savages from director Oliver Stone. But, it leaves an emotional impact. This is a fun, suspenseful summer movie that will get your attention for 90 minutes but then you would question yourself if you would go scuba diving in a shark cage ever. I dug this movie.
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