Culture

Director: David R. Ellis (2/5)

Shark Night 3D revolves around a group of college kids who decide to spend a weekend at their friend Sara’s lake house. What starts out as a fun trip takes a turn for the worse; when the star football player stumbles from the salt-water lake with his arm torn off, the party mood quickly evaporates. Assuming the injury was caused by a freak wake-boarding accident, the group realises that they have to get him to a hospital on the other side of the lake, and fast. But as they set out in a tiny speedboat, the college friends discover the lake is populated by hundreds of massive, flesh-eating sharks! As they face one grisly death after another, Sara and the others struggle desperately to fend off the sharks and reach the safety of dry land. Well, that’s it for the plot.
 
Let me just come out right now and say that this movie was absolutely fun to watch. The film can be grouped under the ‘so bad it’s good’ category. Don’t get me wrong; the acting was uninspired, the setting was predictable, and the CGI was horrible, but the one thing that made the whole 90 or so minutes so entertaining were the implausible situations that the characters went through. It is reassuring to know that if you lose an arm in a giant lake, it can easily be found by swimming into the water without any equipment. Or, that after acquiring the severed arm, it’s easy to spot the bloodthirsty shark and out-swim it. Let me remind you, this is the same shark that can outrun a speedboat.
 
The one mistake that the writers/director made was trying to make the mood of this movie too serious. If they had made it into more of a comedy with lots of gore, then maybe, just maybe it would have been better. I would only recommend this movie if you have become tired of procrastinating on Facebook and have a few bucks to waste. Let’s admit it, stalking that chick from Saturday night on Facebook does get a little boring.