I don’t mind a good shark movie, Jaws and, umm, well, that’s about it for me. Now and then, a half-decent one will turn up, but most of them are pretty much standard affairs. Great White is not one of those standard movies, it’s just terrible! There are spoilers, but it really doesn’t matter, because you shouldn’t waste your time on this movie.
Great White
Directed by Martin Wilson and written by Michael Boughen, it stars Katrina Bowden, Aaron Jakubenko, Kimie Tsukakoshi, Te Kohe Tuhaka and Tim Kano.
I’ll start with the good things about this movie, Katrina Bowden and Kimie Tsukakoshi. I love Katrina, she was in the TV series 30 Rock and she’s very beautiful. Well, that’s that out of the way, now the bad.
The movie opens to a beautiful beach and a beautiful couple swimming in the beautiful sea. Then guess what happens? Out of nowhere, he’s attacked by a shark and she gets on the boat, only to have a rope snap and throw her back in the water. I was always under the impression that sharks attack when there is blood in the water, so I guessed the lady was on her period. From here, the movie goes downhill.
A couple, Kaz (Bowden) and Charlie (Jakubenko) own a seaplane company and do charters to secluded beaches. Joji (Kano) and Michelle (Kimie), oh and the cook Benny (Te Kohe Tuhaka) head off to Hell’s Reef, which might have well be called ‘Get Killed by a Shark Reef’, for a day out. Joji and Benny don’t like each other and, this might come into play later, in what is an obvious set-up!
They get to a beach, find the half-eaten beautiful couple washed up on the sand, report it and then go looking for their boat, in case of any other survivors.
As they check the boat, the seaplane is attacked by the shark. This was terrible, it looked so CG I didn’t laugh, because it was so bad, but I just couldn’t believe it! It seemed like the scene was inserted, after they forgot to do it, so the editor just quickly made something with Tik-Tok.
The rest of the movie is spent in a life raft, there are arguments, deep and meaningful reasons about their lives, that don’t add anything to the story.
The movie is now Open Water, The Shallows, 47 Meters Down, The Reef and any other type of movie you can think of about sharks… apart from Jaws, this is not Jaws, because Jaws is an amazing movie, original and well directed. Comparing Great White to Jaws is like comparing a beautiful ocean reef to shark fin soup.
Three moments where I did actually laugh out loud were…
(here come the spoilers)
Firstly, Charlie is underwater and has a flare gun, which he shoots at the shark and misses worse than a Storm Trooper shooting at Luke and Leia! It was so stupid.
The second, Charlie ends up stabbing the shark, only to have it cry out in pain! It was supposed to be some crescendo to an epic battle, but it was so laughable!
The third was how Kaz beats the other shark, yeah, there were two of them. She seemed to hold her breath for about 10 minutes, passes out, but was faking, and then uses loads of strength and breath to save the day. It wasn’t the dramatic ending the movie should have had, it was just stupid.
Overall, utter crap! There is nothing worth seeing this movie for, well Katrina I guess, that’s why there’s half a star, but that’s about it. Cheaply made, no story, no characters to care about, nothing you haven’t seen before; by the end of the movie I wanted to shark to eat me, to put me out of my suffering! Some might like it for the cheesy entertainment value, but you’d be hard pushed to find any entertainment in here.
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