If there’s one thing I find fascinating about genres, is that not only do their popularity switch and vary over time, but the genres, and the sub-genres within them often mutate, evolve and change over the passing years. Considering that sharks in the wild haven’t needed to evolve for thousands of years (so they say), it’s actually quite strange that the killer shark movie has seen dome significant changes ever since Jaws back in 1975.
For a while there, every shark was Jaws, but after every other filmmaker realised that living up to Spielberg’s toothy masterpiece, the genre shifted to a mixture of holidays-gone-wrong thrillers (Open Water, The Shallows), or a procession of camp, cheapjack, tongue-in-cheek productions such as the Sharknado series. But these days, the genre seems to have gone down the tributary of crime thrillers that use sharks as more of a deadly obstacle, rather than the star and one of the latest of these, the Tubi premier Great White Waters, follows that plot to the letter.
Leading from the first page of the Modern Shark Movie Handbook, we find widow Gia taking out the boat she got as a wedding present from her husband, Dalton, as a way to process the trauma she’s experienced since his death. However, as she fishes and dives, lurking beneath her is four crates of a drug shipment disguised as matcha tea that had been dropped from a plane the night before. Why hadn’t they been collected by the underlings of overacting crime boss, Leo Reverend earlier? Well, that’s just the problem – they did, but to their detriment they found that the sharks in the area are frenzied to the point that they’ll happily leap on the boat to eat its meal to death.
However, Reverend isn’t exactly the most understanding crimelord and desperately needs his shipment delivered back to him by the end of the day, so he sends out a crack team to pull off a salvage mission regardless of the countless, aquatic, hungry mouths that are waiting for more morsels to show up. Led by the frustrated right hand man, Jareth and backed up by tech guy Tony, sharpshooter Li, power hungry henchwoman Charlotte and a couple of others with “chum” practically plastered across their forheads, they soon discover that they have the same fishy problems their predecessors had.
However, as the sharks start coming (and they don’t stop coming), the collection of criminals find that their fat is temporarily pulled out out of the fire when Gia shows up with an electronic shark repeller that’s dangerously low on charge. Of course, what with them all being hardened criminals and all, they repay her kindness by taking her hostage and get her to help them salvage their illegal booty.
But while tensions on the boat rise, it mirrors how overexcited the sharks are getting as as their attacks get more violent, there’s a fair few secrets on the boat that will also race to the surface.
I mentioned Sharknado earlier in the review which proves to be something of a coincidence, as Anthony C. Ferrante the director of that series of that ludicrous movies has decided to put his serious face on to deliver a shark flick that doesn’t require chainsaws or endless, instantly dated cameos. However, if you’ve spent your time watching any low budget shark movies made over the last couple of years (Fear Below, Deep Fear and Into The Deep are prime examples), then Great White Waters will probably hold precious few surprises for you. The trauma-processing lead is obviously present and correct as all she wants to do to deal with his loss is go out on her boat and do boat shit while minding her business and much like many other similarly themed films, we also get a motley crew of career criminals who discover that maybe a bit of careful planning probably should be in order when fishing drugs out of shark infested waters.
For the majority of the film, Ferrante chooses to deliver a standard shark vs. crooks offering that delivers all the unrealistic CGI and awkward, floundering death scenes you’d expect from a killer animal movie made by The Asylum and, to be fair, it’s pretty bland for the most part. The performances are – well, pretty much what you’d expect, ranging from a competent lead performance from Angela Cole, to a bizarre, overacting turn from a mob boss who, in turn, comes across as genuinely threatening as a game show host. The rest of the cast follow suit with a variety of success, but it’s tough to care for any of them when they not only are all a procession of paper-thin characters, but deliver chuckle-worthy death scenes where they splash in the water like a toddler in the deep end while digital sharks clumsily nibble on their extremities.
However, with around half an hour left to go, it seems like Ferrante must have bumped his noggin and temporarily thought he was deep back in his Sharknado days when the movie suddenly springs into ridiculous life and we get a glimpse at the so-bad-it’s-good extravaganza we could’ve gotten. After nearly an hour of (sort of) buttoned down thriller malarkey, the flick suddenly goes insane when the crime boss inexplicably shows up in a helicopter to winch out his drugs in person like he’s rocked up to the final level of an arcade beat-em-up. If this wasn’t illogical enough, physics decides to take a five minute cigarette break as a great white the length of a minibus suddenly launches out of the water like a popped cork and latches it’s Jaws onto the dangling cargo leaning yo a panicking Reverend to swing the fish about the place like a shark-themed wrecking ball. It’s idiotic, it’s stupid and it’s horribly out of place – but by God if the rest of the film had been a bit more like this then Tubi would have a must-watch piece of shark crap on their hands.
Regrettably, the movie loses momentum soon after and we got back to the cast squabbling amongst one another when only a modicum of teamwork would have sealed the deal. However, while some amusingly wild revelations manage to keep you vaguely focused (is a third of all of Miami’s crime population all undercover cops, or what?) and a spot of coerced confession via some snapping jaws is fun, it becomes fairly clear that the movie has well and truly shot its bolt.
So, yet another direct to streaming shark movie ultimately means yet another disappointment – not that the words “Tubi Premiere” actually hold much promise – but while undemanding fans of aquatic thrills will probably swallow this whole and still come back for more, the rest of us will long for yet another shark movie to come along to change the game for the better. Ferrante may have taken a fleeting bite out pop culture with his Sharknado franchise, but Great White Waters proves to be anything but.
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