When I first started thinking about writing this review, I was going to talk about shark movies and the moment they are having now. Poor sharks, not really wanting to start a mess, and killing fewer folks than you’d think, were you to judge by popular culture, but they make for good villains. They are horrifyingly beautiful creatures, and perfect for art, especially the movies. The thing is, though, that there are very, very few genuinely good shark films. Most focus on the kills, and not the characters, and in doing so, they rely on poor effects or awful CGI. The thing is, though, that you could make a really scary movie without showing the shark until the end. There are ways to do it while also being scary. First, though, you need characters.
Alas, that isn’t the focus of most shark films. They focus on the shark, and “cool kills,” and that’s about it. The same can be said about “Chum,” but worse than that, the film relies on AI to such a degree that it not only takes you out of the film, but out of reality. More on this to come.
An attractive couple is celebrating their destination with friends and family, but things are not great between them. The tension spills over the morning after the wedding, as the bride and groom speak to one another for the first time in hours, and it’s clear that things are bad, bad, bad. Before they can talk things out, their friends pop up to take them on a celebratory cruise on the ocean in a rented luxury catamaran. The two reluctantly agree to go on the cruise, but things go from bad to worse when they are beset by a killer shark. While trying to figure out what to do, their boat catches fire. Things are looking dire but just as it seems they are all doomed, a good samaritan in a fishing boat shows up to save them. The bride has a funny feeling about the fisherman, only to have her friends shrug off her concerns. What they are about to find, though, is that the shark isn’t the only dangerous thing in these waters.
This is a bad movie.
There, I saved you a lot of time.
The acting, the writing, and the bad, bad AI effects are terrible. I don’t necessarily blame the actors here because the writing is dreadful. It’s a genuinely interesting idea at its core, but nothing new or interesting is done with it. With all shark shots, attacks, and gore being AI, it makes it so that you’re watching a mediocre soap opera on a boat with attractive people who don’t even get to have the fun of dying live in the film.
The nefarious thing here is that the movie doesn’t even cop to the AI. I had a suspicion, with how much of the shark we see, and with how awful the kill scenes are, that AI was used, and a quick search confirmed it. And here’s the thing: use AI if you want to. It’s a tool, but, like every tool, if it’s misused, then you get nothing done. In this case, the overuse and then not admitting it was used breaks the viewer’s trust. I don’t have to like AI movies or watch them, but if you don’t admit to it, then you are trying to trick me, which is a bad look. There is a scene where someone jumps into the air and lands on the shark’s back to attack it. It looks so bad that I’d swear that the person moves laterally in the air, to position them onto the back of the shark. It’s that corny.
Movies are not easy to make. Especially GOOD movies. I always applaud folks who can get a film made and released. It’s an incredible feat. There are moments here where you can see some glimmers. You can see why actress Alice Eve wanted to be in it and is a producer on it, as she gets to be tough in some scenes and gets a little action, but that doesn’t wash the taste out of the mouth of a bad movie. There is an attempt at an artful edge, but they end up feeling so corny and ham-handed that it ruins what they were trying to do. Then the movie has one final coda that is so corny that it fits perfectly. This may become a movie that is so bad, it’s good, but time will tell.
TL;DR: AI didn’t kill this movie, but the people who used it most certainly did.
1 out of 5
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt41604789
The movie is now available.
