The Reef

"You look like a seal in that, sharks love seals."

In a thriller like this one you have to be careful about what you leave to the imagination and what you show. Thankfully The Reef finds the balance and manages to perfectly capture despair and isolation without sacrificing pacing or disappointing the audience with a lack of sharks.

I liked this film a lot, its only problem was being a little too derivative. It's very similar to both Open Water and its sequel. However, it takes the ideas presented in those and ramps up the events. Whereas Open Water's screentime was largely devoted to two people floating in the ocean, The Reef leaves four people isolated and picks them off one by one. It makes for a much more traditionally entertaining experience, but it's well done in a way that doesn't make it typical. There's actual suspense and build-up to the scares.

The shark scenes are done well, mixing real footage of a great white with our actors. When I heard this was how the effects were done before seeing the film I was iffy on the concept. However, it's nearly perfect. The digital compositing of the people into the shark footage and vice-versa is flawlessly done. There's only one shot that stands out as a bit unreal, but it's very brief and doesn't take away from the experience.

If you were one who enjoyed this directors other film Black Water, or enjoyed the concepts presented in Open Water (or the film itself), than The Reef is definitely a film worth checking out.

Critical rating- 7/10
Entertainment rating- 7/10
Shark movie rating- 8/10

Deep Blue Sea

Deep Blue Sea, one of the more famous shark movies, and one of the better ones... The story is alright, and works well. It puts the sharks in a human environment, and most of the time it works. It's pretty scary seeing sharks swim through flooded corridors to attack humans. Imagine if this happened in Titanic or Poseidon Adventure, it would've been cheesy(and historically inaccurate for one), but pretty scary.

Perhaps the film's greatest asset is its production values. The sharks all look great, thanks to a good blending of practical and visual effects. The shark attacks are well done and unexpected. It's a fun game trying to guess who's going to be killed next.

"Please don't kill me!"

I really enjoyed this movie, it's one of the more well made shark movies out there. It's a solid, fun action/adventure movie.

Critical rating- 5/10
Entertainment rating- 8.5/10
Shark movie rating- 8/10

Cast:
Thomas Jane
Saffron Burrows
LL Cool J
Michael Rapaport
Stellan Skarsgård
Samuel L. Jackson
Jacqueline McKenzie

Director:
Renny Harlin

Writers:
Duncan Kennedy
Donna Powers