Nonsense science and monster-movie cliches pile up in the latest marauding-shark thriller – but it’s lots of fun, too
Last week, the Academy invited its Twitter followers to boil down the plot of their favourite film to five words. Here’s a plot that needs no boiling: Jason Statham versus prehistoric megashark. That formula might merely have generated a boneheaded Jaws reboat [sic], or a flimsy disappointment along the lines of 2006’s Snakes on a Plane, where movie wound up secondary to pitch. The face-off we actually get is on an acceptable par with 1999’s enjoyably lively Deep Blue Sea, where LL Cool J had his parrot chomped by an angry Frankenshark: its wittily-handled pulp will do you just fine on a Friday or Saturday night, given the right expectations.
Once more, nonsense science (“Are you saying we’ve opened up a superhighway for giant sharks?”) lashes together a string of monster-movie cliches, some more knowingly deployed than others. Statham’s rogue diver Jonas Turner has sunk into boozing to drown memories of a professional low; the research crew that he’s called to rescue inevitably includes his ex-wife. One new ingredient is Chinese investment capital, which provides fancy production design – light-up shark cages! – and a prominent role for local luminary Li Bingbing, but also limits what these sea dogs can say and do. Given the threat level, it seems a pity to deprive the star of his Olympian cursing gifts: two discreetly muffled, ratings-conscious s-bombs are as close as Jase gets to going full Stath.
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