Joel on Film

One might think it wouldn’t be too difficult—setting aside, of course, the general difficulty of producing a film—to get a shark movie right, especially considering so many of them have been made at this point. One just needs an ensemble of characters interesting enough for us to root for them, a scenario with enough intensity to hook us in the audience and, of course, a shark that is both convincing and scary. All right, that might actually be a list of daunting tasks, but Thrash repeatedly proves to us that it can barely be bothered to do anything of use with those ingredients.

There are a few neat moments throughout, to be fair, such as how it delays anything like a human hitting a shark squarely in the face until practically the very last minute, at which point the least likely of the characters here does just that. There’s also a fun series of comedic notes afforded to the least likable character onscreen, and yes, one of those moments involves his inevitable comeuppance. One supposes, too, that it’s always a good idea to have Djimon Hounsou onscreen, here playing a marine biologist who takes it upon himself to save his agoraphobic niece.

Then again, that punching-the-shark moment is both thoroughly silly and slightly undermined by the poor digital effects used to bring it to life, the comedic moments about that particular character are similarly undermined by the entire existence of the plot thread following him, and Hounsou—a fine actor with accolades to his name—is given next-to-nothing of note to do in what turns out to be an entirely inconsequential role. We can obviously count these blessings among the reasons the movie is not among the absolute worst films among this trend, which is really its own genre by now. In no way is that an attempt to give this movie undue credit.

It’s all quite silly, bordering on kind of stupid and occasionally brushing the edges of genuinely foolish, but without the apparent self-awareness to know it. That’s the fault of writer/director Tommy Wirkola, who assembles a bunch of dull archetypes who are masquerading as bona fide movie characters and lets them loose in a plot that has no idea what to do with them beyond the obvious point. A massive storm brings with it a massive amount of structural damage and, of course, a massive shark, as well as a few others that aren’t so small (or convincing) themselves.

To the movie’s credit, at only 80 minutes (without credits), the momentum of the thing is basically right on the mark. Wirkola barely wastes any time getting to the allegedly “good stuff” of the shark attacks and the survival and/or rescue attempts by the heroes and/or human shark food who populate the plot. That, though, is just another way of saying that the filmmaker only once provides a specific reason to feel sympathy for any of these characters, none of whom are given characteristics of the sort that we commonly refer to as “development.”

Hounsou’s Dale, for instance, does, indeed, venture out to find and rescue his niece Dakota (Whitney Peak), whose anxiety disorder (brought on by the deaths, years apart, of her parents) has locked her inside her home, with no way of escaping after the evacuation window closes. Lisa (Phoebe Dynevor) is so incredibly pregnant that, even as this story really only takes place over the course of several hours in a single day, she gets the inevitable birthing scene under unfortunate and dire circumstances. A trio of teenagers (played by Alyla Browne, Stacy Clausen and Dante Ubaldi) already face the terrifying situation of verbally abusive foster parents (played by Matt Nable and Amy Mathews) before being terrorized by a trio of very hungry sharks.

That last thread, by the way, is the one with the film’s least likable character, as the dad of the family has almost nothing but scalding words to scream at his kids, and if it sounds unfair that this review has already revealed that he doesn’t survive this whole ordeal, well, keep in mind that this is quite a negative review. It’s not worth the trouble of keeping much secret about Thrash, which is simply a dull exercise in every stereotypical facet of the shark movie that comes to mind.

Rating: *½ (out of ****)