Awhile
back I reviewed a movie called “The
Shallows” which was about a young woman trapped on a rock in the ocean by a
marauding Great White Shark. Starring Blake Lively, it was a captivating and
genuinely stressful experience, and also one that didn’t talk down to its
female lead, or pull any punches with the toothy fish. I had a good time
watching it and, coincidentally, managed to catch “Jaws” on telly a few nights later (it’s still good, but I think “The Shallows” is better – chew on that
controversial little morsel!). Anyway, since then, I’ve had my passive radar
pulsing, seeking out other movies with finny adversaries and I came up with
these two.
KENTIS, Chris, “Open Water”, Lions Gate Films/Plunge
Pictures LLC., 2004.
Based
on a ludicrous incident which happened on the Great Barrier Reef, in which the
operators of a reef-diving tour boat forgot to perform a head-count as the day
drew to a close and thus stranded two French tourists out at sea, in this
re-telling, the French couple are swapped out for two Americans named Susan and
Daniel. Both suffering from the stress of busy careers, the two take a break
and decide to go diving offshore with a reef-diving company. Things start well:
everyone gets into the water and there are many pretty shots of colourful fish,
blue water and thriving coral (alas, would that it had stayed that way!). Soon
enough, the boat operators perform a miscount and take the rest of the tourists
home for the day, leaving Susan and Daniel stranded.
At
this point, all of the interesting footage in this film has been seen. From
here on in, all we have to look at are Susan’s and Daniel’s heads sticking out
of the water and an endless succession of rolling waves. Sometimes it’s daytime,
sometimes it’s night; occasionally there’s a point-of-view shot of a distant boat,
or a way too high aeroplane; a storm sometimes blemishes the horizon. And,
every now and then, a shark pops up to say “hello”.
Susan
and Daniel’s life issues get well hammered out. They panic; they deny; they
blame each other; they try to jolly each other along. Finally, one of them gets
eaten and the other one gives up and drowns (and is eaten). I should probably
have said “Spoiler Alert!” but, check it – it’s a movie about two people left
behind in shark-infested waters. What did you think was gonna happen?
The
format of this film is defined by its handheld camera-work. This gives the
set-up phase of the film a nice sense of immediacy and intimacy, but when we
hit the water it mainly instigates sea-sickness. Still, it’s a choice that the
director of the next movie should have opted for, because it would have
minimised a bunch of that film’s
issues. Overall, this film was fairly tedious in the long-run: watching a young
couple sort out their marriage issues, even while facing the possibility of
being eaten alive, felt too much like watching reality TV, something that even
the random emergence of ravenous sharks (“hello!”) couldn’t save. I’m giving it
two Tentacled Horrors.
*****
RASCIONATO, Gerald, “Cage Dive”, Just One More
Productions/Odin’s Eye Entertainment, 2016.
The
tagline for this film is “First you find
the sharks, then they find you!”. As menacing as that sounds, for some
reason, the sharks in this film don’t seem to be able to find the people who
deserve to be eaten anywhere near quickly enough! The moment I started watching
this, I felt a distinct sense of déjà-vu:
In pretty much all of its essentials, this film is a re-make of “Open Water”, but with a bigger budget
and wa-a-a-ay more annoying lead actors.
The
premise for this iteration centres around three young Americans, Jeff, Megan
and Josh. Jeff is going out with Megan but, as we learn, she is two-timing him
with his brother Josh. Incestuous much? The three of them decide to audition
for a reality TV show (groan!) which seeks to emphasise their teamwork and
survival skills, keeping hidden the fact that Jeff has a heart condition for which
he needs medication, a detail that would automatically disqualify him from
entering. Our trio decide to go shark-cage diving, film their effort and
present the footage as their audition tape. To this end they fly to Adelaide in
South Australia and get ready to face the fishies. While they’re in the shark
cage, a freak wave capsizes the boat and they get jettisoned: in the aftermath
they encounter a dead body with its face peeling off (which gets eaten), an hysterical
girl (also eaten) and a purposeful guy who seeks to get everyone organised
(eaten). Our trio end up clinging together and eventually float away from the
sunken boat.
From
here on in, it’s just heads bobbing in the waves, recriminations and panic and
the eventual unravelling of the secret of just who Megan is sleeping with. Every now and then, a shark pops up to say “hello!”.
Unlike “Open Water” however, random
incidents happen to break the monotony: a life-vest floats past, giving them
something to cling to and rest upon; an esky drifts past, tempting Jeff to
strike out and capture it, thus splitting the party, a thing they were
expressly told not to do if they ended up in the water (arguments ensue); and
finally, a four-person inflatable life raft appears, which, after they grab it,
inflate it, get stuck into the supplies and rescue another comatose female
survivor of the boat, they then set fire to with a signal flare and burn to the
waterline (along with the comatose woman). At this point I was actually yelling
at the TV screen for the sharks to show up already!
Whereas
“Open Water” used handheld
camera-work to reasonable effect, “Cage
Dive” decides to go one further: the film is established as the real,
actual footage found in a damaged camera, detailing the last few days in 2012
of a doomed trio of Yank teens. Committing the movie to the ‘found footage’
trope, means that everything that happens has to be filmed by at least one of
the main characters, and, when they’re all in the water, it starts to stretch
the limits of credibility. Why are they filming
when they could be doing something – anything!
– to better effect? It simply underscores the fact that, shallow and affected
as you think these three are, they are actually shallower than you can think.
And
of course there’s the panic, the denial, the recriminations, the jollying along
and the occasional Great White Shark (it’s South Australia – they’re all Great Whites). Boats and aeroplanes are
too far away to see or be seen; sometimes it’s day, sometimes it’s night;
occasionally a storm blemishes the horizon… you know the drill… “hello!”. Despite being dressed up with
pretend news footage about efforts to find the missing boat and “interviews”
with those involved who survived, the essential problem with this movie is that
these three aren’t worth saving. There was some nice footage of a pod of whales
at the beginning and a cheesy shot right at the end of the camera going down a
shark’s gullet, but these are the only high points. I’m giving it one Tentacled
Horror.
*****
A
bigger budget doesn’t mean a better film as we’ve often seen before. “Open Water” did well enough with what
it had but essentially, once the chum was in the drink, there’s not a lot to
keep viewers interested, certainly not the endless domestic arguments that the couple
resorts to in order to pass the time. “Cage
Dive” did itself a great disservice by running the "Hollywood morality" playbook and by presenting itself as ‘real events’ –
I just ended up pitying the sharks who had to try and digest those pathetic
oiks. Wait! Maybe that’s why the
sharks weren’t in any hurry to devour them?! All is explained…
PS:
I just did some research (which I prolly should’ve done earlier!) and discovered
that “Cage Dive” was billed in the US
(and maybe elsewhere) as “Open Water 3:
Cage Dive”. No wonder they seemed so similar! Here in Australia, there’s no
clear connexion between them in any of the packaging or marketing and I haven’t
seen any sign of “Open Water 2: Adrift”.
Not that I’m going to go looking for it any time soon…
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