hashime Reviews

Empire of the Sharks (2017 TV Movie)

Another in the long line of shark themed drivel

[2/10 · 5 August 2017]

This movie tries to combine Mad Max with Jaws and the end product is about what you expect when you see "shark" in a movie title these days. The only thing I liked was the setting, the various boats and mixes of technology made for an interesting setting. Everything else was absolutely awful. The acting was bad, even for a made for TV movie. The writing relied heavily on long over done clichés and tropes and the plot was rather uninteresting. As with all of the latest crop of this kind of film the sound design is overdone and distracting, potentially to make up for the awful writing. It makes the cheesy action scenes even harder to sit through. Overused bargain bin CG adds to the unbearable cringe that describes most of this movie. The main villain is beyond comical, the actor's performance combined with the writing makes his appearances on screen almost comical, but still somewhat painful.

In short, this movie is bad, not "so bad its good" but "Why did I waste 90 minutes of my life on this" bad.

Sanctum (2011)

Thrilling, Beautiful

[7/10 · 11 February 2011]

I quite liked this movie. The acting is not amazing, and the dialogue was a little sub-par, but this was made up for with the technical realism of the SCUBA diving and the breath-taking (pun intended) scenery. As a SCUBA diver I am a little biased towards liking this film. There are very few movies produces by Hollywood that even come close to displaying the level of realism of the SCUBA in this movie. There are some absurd moments for sure, but in general the movie gets it down well. The cave system for me was the best feature of the movie, it is absolutely gorgeous. This movie may be a pass for many, but if you can spare the time / money, and love exploration it is worth a look.