Genres: Action/Adventure, Suspense/Horror and Thriller Release Date: September 2nd, 2011 (wide) MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence and terror, disturbing images, sexual references, partial nudity, language and thematic material. Distributor: Relativity Media
Cast And Credits
Starring:
Sinqua Walls, Chris Carmack, Joel David Moore, Sara Paxton, Dustin Milligan
Directed by:
David R. Ellis (V)
Produced by:
Mike Fleiss, Ryan Kavanaugh, Chris Briggs
Shark movies are irresistible to Hollywood for many reasons, not the least being their limitless hospitality to close-ups of thrashing, bodacious young women wearing wet bikinis. Even in that sense, however, “Shark Night 3D†disappoints, despite its director’s frequent attention to below-the-waist activity.
Featuring the familiar bunch of attractive, stereotypical college kids â€" including the dumb jock (Sinqua Walls), the sensitive intellectual (Dustin Milligan) and the aloof princess with the complicated past (Sara Paxton) â€" this latest entry in the bobbing-and-bloodbath category is destined to suffer unfavorable comparisons with last year’s bite-happy “Piranha 3D.†That film benefited from an enviable R rating and the crafty Alexandre Aja at the helm, a man who knows from excess; this one has an “American Idol†runner-up and the director David R. Ellis, struggling to make the transition from “Snakes on a Plane†to teeth in the water.
Working a setup â€" a Louisiana cabin, a suspiciously shark-stocked saltwater lake â€" as minimal as its wardrobe, the mostly young cast is game if unmemorable. Ms. Paxton, in particular, deserves better: previously terrorized by human predators in the 2009 remake of “The Last House on the Left,†here she is little more than shark bait hampered by a ridiculous back story. And the presence of the estimable Donal Logue, playing an affable sheriff with a nasty secret, only made me more mournful for the cancellation of his excellent television show, “Terriers.â€
Filmed on Caddo Lake, near Shreveport, Will Hayes and Jesse Studenberg’s script tests the limits of PG-13 with the usual lecherous rednecks, proving only how tough it is to lust in a family-friendly fashion. The result is a movie that isn’t crummy, exactly, just blah: when the freakiest teeth on screen belong not to one of Walt Conti’s animatronically realized sharks but to a good-ol’-boy called Red, you know you have a problem. A bite from a great white would be preferable to a kiss from Red any day.
Shark movies are irresistible to Hollywood for many reasons, not the least being their limitless hospitality to close-ups of thrashing, bodacious young women wearing wet bikinis. Even in that sense, however, “Shark Night 3D†disappoints, despite its director’s frequent attention to below-the-waist activity. 
Filmed on Caddo Lake, near Shreveport, Will Hayes and Jesse Studenberg’s script tests the limits of PG-13 with the usual lecherous rednecks, proving only how tough it is to lust in a family-friendly fashion. The result is a movie that isn’t crummy, exactly, just blah: when the freakiest teeth on screen belong not to one of Walt Conti’s animatronically realized sharks but to a good-ol’-boy called Red, you know you have a problem. A bite from a great white would be preferable to a kiss from Red any day.
