Shark Night 3D (2011)

How sad is this?

As Good As It Gets

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

This one could have been a good deal of schlocky fun, but alas the filmmakers decided to take the inane premise of a handful of vacationing young folks being terrorized by sharks in a Louisiana lake resort community seriously instead of treating it in a more tongue-in-cheek manner. Director David B. Ellis maintains a snappy enough pace and offers lots of flashy stylistic flourishes throughout, but crucially fails to generate any essential tension. Worse yet, the heavy-handed script by Will Hayes and Jesse Studenberg not only relates a silly story that becomes more increasingly ludicrous as it unfolds, but also gets bogged down in tiresome melodrama and presents an array of cardboard characters who are impossible for the viewer to care about. The fact that the CGI sharks look hopelessly cartoonish and unconvincing adds further abject insult to already appalling injury. The blaring rock soundtrack proves to be headache-inducing while the PG-13 rating puts the kibosh on any explicit nudity or graphic gore. On the plus side, Donal Logue manages to rise above the muck with his amusing portrayal of a good ol' boy sheriff and the attractive female cast members look pretty smokin' in their bikinis. But overall this clunker sizes up as the cinematic equivalent of a gallon of rotten chum.

I work at a library (yes, it's awesome), and am in the cataloging department. This little gem may have slipped by getting added to our library's DVD section if I hadn't pulled it off the donation cart. How someone could give up this gem, I'm not sure, but I'm glad they did because I, and numerous library patrons, will now be able to enjoy it.Nerds, Jocks and Hot Girls all get along together, which is nice to see. Then you have the typical redneck, which of course you will find on the way to your giant lake house that has no neighbors close by. Once we get to the house, that's when the mangling and dismembering begins. What they think of as a freak thing, (the shark must have came through the levy after hurricane season), quickly turns into sharks everywhere. The sheriff (who plays Harvey on Gotham… love that crazy show), adds some comic relief as the bumbling country bumpkin. Very little nudity, and no sex, just lots and lots of blood. The final reason as to why this is happening makes sense in a twisted way. And honestly I'm surprised something like this hasn't happened in real life… or maybe it has. So next time you're near a saltwater lake, you might want to let your friends go for a swim while you stay on the beach.

Title: Shark Night 3DDirected by: David R. Ellis Storyline: We then cut to a high school or college or university or what ever it is, where it seems to be results day. We also get a product placement of the Halo franchise here as well. We see a confrontation scene which turns out to be a comical ploy to make the plot develop. Once they get the boat and have been driving for a while. We also get an unwinding montage of them just dancing or comparing clothes, not sure if this is what normal people would do, but I'll let it pass for being a nice montage, it also reminds us of the other side of the 15 rating by showing 'side boob'. Nick then takes Malik boat surfing, and they get out into the deeper swamp and this is when we see a fin protruding from the water and Malik gets knocked off his board by the shark. Once Nick finds the arm and escapes the shark, they then make their way to the nearest hospital on the boat but the blood dripping from his arm is leaking into the water and leaving a trail for the sharks to follow. But the sharks hit the boat and knocks Maya out of the boat and into the water where she gets eaten. A shark also takes out the boat's steering some how and this causes them to crash and blow up the boat. Which is honestly a good explosion and looks realistic and not CGI. That is how explosions should look. This is when the rednecks show up, Gordon and Beth go with the rednecks to go and get help but it turns out the rednecks were just leading them into a trap. Back at the house Malik takes a spear and tries to find the shark that took his arm, surprisingly he finds the correct one and kills it. Back on the redneck boat they push Gordon into the watch but he is able to climb a tree to only get eaten. Back at the house they find a camera on the shark Malik killed and they work out that people have released sharks into the water to kill people. Blake takes Malik on the jetski to try and get him to a hospital before he dies but they both end up dying. The rednecks kill Beth by feeding her to Cookie Cutter sharks, this is one thing I have to give them props for, because they took a very uncommon barely known shark and gave it screen time, the CGI for the Cookie Cutters is some of the best in the movie as they are the most correctly portrayed visuals of Cookie Cutters. We also find out that the police sheriff Sabin, is also working with the rednecks, it isn't an unexpected plot twist but it is nicely played. Sabin is back at the house with Nick while Sara and the rednecks are on the boat planning to feed Sara to the sharks before she drowns in the cage. You see Nick spill gasoline while Sabin is dunking him in the water, but some how Nick is able to get a lighter out of no where while he's tied to a chair and throw it at the gasoline trail, setting Sabin on fire so he falls into the shark water. But you see the wig of the stunt double fall off when he falls into the water. But we all know how this ends, good guy Nick survives and saves the girl and the redneck gets what he deserves. Acting: The first scene in the student dorm is good with Malik played by Sinqua Walls pretending to be serious, but this is ruined by Nick played by Dustin Milligan reacting too quickly to Malik's joke. But for everyone else during the movie, they are all believable and decent actors who can portray emotion when they need to and look believable when they need to. Noticeable Camera work: At the start we see underwater shots, but you'll also see that the cameraman is constantly moving the camera. As an underwater videographer that really annoying me as they could have a great shot if only they knew how to hold a camera steady in the water. Our first piece of fun camera work is a speeded up montage like trip to Sara's beach house which takes them a day to get to by car. There is also an across the water shot which appeared to have been done by the camera crew on a boat or barge. Good POV shot from the police boat as they start off the boat chase followed by birds eye shots from before and during the chase.Graphics: We finally see the shark a third into the movie and the CGI for the shark isn't the best there is. The shark looks like it is actually in the water, so they have got that part correctly, but the shark itself looks fake, but credit where it is due as they were able to make the background of it look real to immerse it into the water. Overall Feel: This is a B-rated movie, this means that it isn't as good as your other general cinema released movie. But you can watch this movie and enjoy it as you can tell that the people who made the movie, put their all in making this movie. They also did good for a budget of $25,000,000 as they were able to get good sets, good actors and decent CGI. So if you enjoy movies where good guy beats bad guy but with added sharks, then you'll enjoy this film. I feel it is underrated because of its 4 stars, it should at least have 6 in my opinion.

**Spoiler Alert**There I was, standing in front of RedBox trying to figure out what to rent with my "free rental code" and after the anxiety had slipped away I landed on Shark Night. Now I was very unsure how to accept or prepare for this movie after reading other reviews on this movie, And I will tell you this..... If you are looking for some just plain old movie fun then this is your movie. Shark Night was actually filmed quite well, had good acting, and there was a story involved too. Sure it was silly and dumb and some scenes did not really make sense, like how smart and amazingly aggressive the sharks were, but man this movie was fun!!!Its about 7 college friends that go for a weekend of fun at a friends lake house for vacation. After some crazy in-water occurrences happen, they realize that there are a lot of different species of sharks in the water. I will not spoil the movie too much for you but after a dude gets his arm ripped off and people start to die then things start to take a twist.Basically if you like to watch good cinematography, little bit of blood and gore, action, and scenes that don't really add up but are still entertaining to watch then I suggest this movie.RATING 7 out of 10