I like shark movies and Dolph Lundgren, but watching this movie was like swimming in chum hoping a shark would put me out of my misery. The only spoiler in this review is to save you from wasting your time watching this. Stop reading now!
Anyone who has dealt with divorce and custody would recognize right away just how Hollywood loves to depict fathers as someone who doesn't deserve his own children. Oh, and this is a shark movie.
Clint is a widowed father who is confronted by a female cop named Meredith who invades his home in the middle of the night without even an arrest warrant. To protect his daughter Carly from this unknown home invader, he flees with the intruder in pursuit, leaving his daughter behind out of harm's way. The cop gives chase and forces him off the road and into the lake where he is shot and arrested for selling exotic animals without a license. Way to get that horrible person off the streets! To protect the little girl from her horrible father, Sheriff Meredith takes in Clint's daughter and tells her to call her "Mom." Meredith teaches her that men are sexist. At swim lessons, Meredith tells Carly that girls either say "I can't" or "Watch me do it." Maybe Carly will swim to the other side of the pool because she can. Or maybe this little reveal will pay off later when she's in the lake being chased by a shark and she escapes because mom was such a pushy bad ass who made her survive. No and no. It was just a red herring, just like all the other details in this script. I think it has something to do about sharks.
Five years later, Clint gets out of prison and returns to his pristine home by the lake that was not foreclosed on while he was incarcerated. Not only is Clint an exotic animal handler, but he is a top notch housekeeper too. After frying up a perfectly cooked steak, he seeks to visit the daughter that he's been missing all these years. Not if Meredith can help it! She unilaterally decides that she is the only parent that little Carly needs, and she will break every law in the book to protect her from her bad father. She tells her boss to force the judge to keep Clint away from his daughter. After reminding her boss about all the exotic animals, her boss said he'll give the judge a call. Who says the justice system doesn't work? Exotic animal dealers are much more dangerous than bank robbers, killers, or a meth lab entrepreneur.
Somewhere in the midst of all this custody drama and lofty feminist ideals, the writer manages to squeeze in a few scenes of a badly created CGI shark. This is Shark Lake after all. There are several shark attacks, but we leave most of it to our imagination as seeing off-screen attacks is much more dramatic (and cheaper). One attack allegedly shows a shark POV lurking in several feet of water, sneaking up on someone wearing boots standing in about two feet of water who is actually a person wearing sneakers standing in six inches of water while panning for gold near the lake's beach. By the time I realized it was supposed to be the same continuous shot, the man's body is already being found face down on the beach with the arm ripped off at the shoulder and barely any blood loss. I was amazed at how adept the shark was at running across the beach to get a snack and leave most of the body intact before returning to the water without a trace. Then we are back to more family drama of the cop trying to usurp the law for her own purpose.
Before we forget that this is a Dolph movie, we have a few more cameos to remind us of why we started watching this thing. Why did I start watching this thing? Then we have more cops breaking and entering a residence without a warrant. We have false kidnapping charges without evidence or proof. We have threats of making sure a father will never see his biological daughter ever again because a female cop who wasn't the mother states that she is a better mother. Maybe this is a John Grisham movie and not really a shark movie. No, I was wrong. A few more people get killed. Sharks get cameos too.
At one point Meredith sees a man's boat and states that "his boat isn't big enough for her." I was just waiting for her to say the line: "We're gonna need a bigger boat." How disappointing.
Then there is a boat crash in the middle of the lake. Two survivors thrash around in the water as a shark closes in. The sheriff, with her gun holstered, offers encouragement to leave the other guy behind (he was a jerk to her earlier) and swim faster as she slowly pulls him in with the rope. So is he swimming or being towed? Too bad she didn't have a gun to shoot that shark with. After swamping their dingy, the shark swims off because they didn't have any more budget for shark screen time. While the director goes off to raise some more money, the sheriff pulls her phone out of her pocket and wedges it between her life jacket and her chest before the boat completely sinks. She needs to keep it dry so that someone can follow the GPS to find their bodies tomorrow. After floating in the water for an hour or so, she pulls out her drenched phone. Water flies off as it drains from the phone. "Still working perfectly as long as the battery holds out." She tucks it back in her submerged jacket. I wish I had a phone that worked that well.
The director's fund raiser must have paid off, because here comes the shark again. The shark's fin goes back and forth behind the survivors like a Cylon's eye, but although they are oblivious to the danger, we are laughing because we see it and they don't. If they stop chatting and look behind them, will the marine expert's knowledge help them survive? Will they kill the shark? Will the shark kill one or both of them? Will they kill the shark and we think they escaped but the shark isn't really dead? If the sheriff dies, will the judge give the father custody of his own child because there is no one else? Maybe this is the moral of the story. If everyone else gets eaten, then the father is the best choice to raise his own child.
I must have dozed off because suddenly someone screamed and then a big CGI fountain of blood bubbled up where the body used to be. Time for another Clint cameo. His contract states that he must make an appearance every 20 minutes or so. Back to some more custody drama. Prove you're a good father. Feed yourself to the shark while I get away with your daughter. If you can defeat He-Man and knock out Rocky, you can knock out a shark! I bet he could do it with one arm tied behind his back. I bet he could do it with one arm hanging loosely by a few tendons from his shoulder. I bet he could pass out and let a Mary Sue finish up his contract. Will he survive the massive blood loss? Will she get a chance to tell Clint that there are no bad fathers, just bad cops who steal other people's children?
Are you really still watching this thing? Go watch Jaws or Divorce Court instead.
Anyone who has dealt with divorce and custody would recognize right away just how Hollywood loves to depict fathers as someone who doesn't deserve his own children. Oh, and this is a shark movie.
Clint is a widowed father who is confronted by a female cop named Meredith who invades his home in the middle of the night without even an arrest warrant. To protect his daughter Carly from this unknown home invader, he flees with the intruder in pursuit, leaving his daughter behind out of harm's way. The cop gives chase and forces him off the road and into the lake where he is shot and arrested for selling exotic animals without a license. Way to get that horrible person off the streets! To protect the little girl from her horrible father, Sheriff Meredith takes in Clint's daughter and tells her to call her "Mom." Meredith teaches her that men are sexist. At swim lessons, Meredith tells Carly that girls either say "I can't" or "Watch me do it." Maybe Carly will swim to the other side of the pool because she can. Or maybe this little reveal will pay off later when she's in the lake being chased by a shark and she escapes because mom was such a pushy bad ass who made her survive. No and no. It was just a red herring, just like all the other details in this script. I think it has something to do about sharks.
Five years later, Clint gets out of prison and returns to his pristine home by the lake that was not foreclosed on while he was incarcerated. Not only is Clint an exotic animal handler, but he is a top notch housekeeper too. After frying up a perfectly cooked steak, he seeks to visit the daughter that he's been missing all these years. Not if Meredith can help it! She unilaterally decides that she is the only parent that little Carly needs, and she will break every law in the book to protect her from her bad father. She tells her boss to force the judge to keep Clint away from his daughter. After reminding her boss about all the exotic animals, her boss said he'll give the judge a call. Who says the justice system doesn't work? Exotic animal dealers are much more dangerous than bank robbers, killers, or a meth lab entrepreneur.
Somewhere in the midst of all this custody drama and lofty feminist ideals, the writer manages to squeeze in a few scenes of a badly created CGI shark. This is Shark Lake after all. There are several shark attacks, but we leave most of it to our imagination as seeing off-screen attacks is much more dramatic (and cheaper). One attack allegedly shows a shark POV lurking in several feet of water, sneaking up on someone wearing boots standing in about two feet of water who is actually a person wearing sneakers standing in six inches of water while panning for gold near the lake's beach. By the time I realized it was supposed to be the same continuous shot, the man's body is already being found face down on the beach with the arm ripped off at the shoulder and barely any blood loss. I was amazed at how adept the shark was at running across the beach to get a snack and leave most of the body intact before returning to the water without a trace. Then we are back to more family drama of the cop trying to usurp the law for her own purpose.
Before we forget that this is a Dolph movie, we have a few more cameos to remind us of why we started watching this thing. Why did I start watching this thing? Then we have more cops breaking and entering a residence without a warrant. We have false kidnapping charges without evidence or proof. We have threats of making sure a father will never see his biological daughter ever again because a female cop who wasn't the mother states that she is a better mother. Maybe this is a John Grisham movie and not really a shark movie. No, I was wrong. A few more people get killed. Sharks get cameos too.
At one point Meredith sees a man's boat and states that "his boat isn't big enough for her." I was just waiting for her to say the line: "We're gonna need a bigger boat." How disappointing.
Then there is a boat crash in the middle of the lake. Two survivors thrash around in the water as a shark closes in. The sheriff, with her gun holstered, offers encouragement to leave the other guy behind (he was a jerk to her earlier) and swim faster as she slowly pulls him in with the rope. So is he swimming or being towed? Too bad she didn't have a gun to shoot that shark with. After swamping their dingy, the shark swims off because they didn't have any more budget for shark screen time. While the director goes off to raise some more money, the sheriff pulls her phone out of her pocket and wedges it between her life jacket and her chest before the boat completely sinks. She needs to keep it dry so that someone can follow the GPS to find their bodies tomorrow. After floating in the water for an hour or so, she pulls out her drenched phone. Water flies off as it drains from the phone. "Still working perfectly as long as the battery holds out." She tucks it back in her submerged jacket. I wish I had a phone that worked that well.
The director's fund raiser must have paid off, because here comes the shark again. The shark's fin goes back and forth behind the survivors like a Cylon's eye, but although they are oblivious to the danger, we are laughing because we see it and they don't. If they stop chatting and look behind them, will the marine expert's knowledge help them survive? Will they kill the shark? Will the shark kill one or both of them? Will they kill the shark and we think they escaped but the shark isn't really dead? If the sheriff dies, will the judge give the father custody of his own child because there is no one else? Maybe this is the moral of the story. If everyone else gets eaten, then the father is the best choice to raise his own child.
I must have dozed off because suddenly someone screamed and then a big CGI fountain of blood bubbled up where the body used to be. Time for another Clint cameo. His contract states that he must make an appearance every 20 minutes or so. Back to some more custody drama. Prove you're a good father. Feed yourself to the shark while I get away with your daughter. If you can defeat He-Man and knock out Rocky, you can knock out a shark! I bet he could do it with one arm tied behind his back. I bet he could do it with one arm hanging loosely by a few tendons from his shoulder. I bet he could pass out and let a Mary Sue finish up his contract. Will he survive the massive blood loss? Will she get a chance to tell Clint that there are no bad fathers, just bad cops who steal other people's children?
Are you really still watching this thing? Go watch Jaws or Divorce Court instead.
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