I’ve interrupted GLOTBC Month to satisfy my own twisted agenda and also celebrate possibly the best international holiday of them all, Shark Week.
I have no idea what this one is like but needless to say, it looks tremendous. FYI there are many shark movies heading to our shores over the next year or so, including but not limited to: Trailer Park Shark, Deep Blue Sea 2 and the incredible sounding, Statham-starring Meg.
I genuinely can’t wait. Until then though, there is this.
Planet of the Sharks (2016)
IMDB Synopsis
In the near future, glacial melting has covered 98% of earth’s landmass. Sharks have flourished and now dominate the planet, operating as one massive school led by a mutated alpha shark.
My Review
Holy mother of God. Don’t get too excited about this particular planet of sharks. It might be populated with many, many sharks but there isn’t that much actual, satisfying shark action to be had.
There is, however, an awful lot of shoddy CGI and you know what, of course there is. This is a made-for-TV Syfy channel special, so you get exactly what it says on the tin. I’m really not in a very good mood this evening so I’m going to tear this one a new one, even though there are a few areas I enjoyed.
Basically, the world appears to be more or less the exact same set up as Deep Blue Sea but on a smaller budget and a larger circumference. People are scavenging to survive, living on weird rigs made of flimsy materials and being eaten by jumping CGI sharks when they’re too blundering to get out of the way in time.
Junk City is the latest target and one afternoon every single resident is dined upon, apart from one survivor, who’s name I can’t even be bothered to look up. She’s given no lines anyway and does literally nothing, so whatevs. She’s lucky enough to be rescued by weathered hunk (?) Dillon Barrick (Brandon Auret) though who is doing better than most because he has a boat.
He also knows some lady scientists (and one dude) who live on another rig and are working on a rocket that will save the world. The lady scientists are all really hot and serious, and they need some bits of metal (?) to complete the rocket so they end up bartering with a very scary warrior queen called D’amato (Angie Teodora Dick) for said supplies.
While hanging around D’amato’s rig, she gives them a lesson in how her ‘tribe’ deal with the threat of sharks. FYI it’s genuinely the best scene and it’s all going swimmingly until it suddenly backfires spectacularly. Let’s just say, the film suffers for not having enough D’amato and her dodgy af accent.
Our scientists manage to get away in the fruckus and it’s all good because they’re in a boat. There’s a sort of plan but it backfires when a pilot they know gets eaten. It’s something to do with a volcano beneath the surface of the earth, a detonator and a laser that hasn’t worked for a long time.
All is not lost though, and the plan is soon on again- but now has to be executed by lady scientist/engineer Nichols (Stephanie Beran) on a kiteboard. Other lady scientist Shaw (Lindsay Sullivan) demands that her colleagues Munro (Christia Visser) and Ishiro (John B Swart) boot up the old laser, despite the massive risk to everyone on board the rig.
Shaw’s not messing though and they do as she says. They also share a moment which I actually thought was v. cute. In our rag tag group we also have another dude who’s super annoying, sarcastic and cowardly so I liked him immediately.
Oh, and have I mentioned that the team have worked out that all the sharks are being controlled somehow by a mutated Queen Shark (that inexplicably glows bright blue)? They try to manipulate the smaller sharks to turn on her but it doesn’t really work and then their plan turns out a bit lame too, we suffer several casualties and I can’t even remember how it ends.
I think the survivors just float off into the sunset on the boat.
Despite the fact that this is on the lower end of the shark scale in terms of literally everything, and most of the performances are unbelievably bad, some of our actors really give it their all.
It was also dead good to see so many kick ass females in one movie (not you, sole survivor) and in high level positions. I guess nobody gives a shit about giving all the best parts to the girls when it’s going straight to the goggle box, eh?
Apart from a slight twinge of fondness for Munro and Ishiro when they kissed (and awe when Ishiro got busy with some ninja daggers), this was pretty bad. It’s not a good sign I can’t remember the ending. Maybe ignore me trying to put a positive spin on this and watch DBS again.
My Rating
1.5/5. Not the best. Maybe one of the worst. Not you though D’amato (RIP).
A Voluptuous Mind 
For real, what WAS D’amato’s accent?????? And actually most of the accents TBH.
Lol, it made no sense to me that the super white guy was named Ishiro. FFS, people.
And why the actual fuck would your storyline revolve around a character who says maybe 1 word through the entire movie?
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I was thinking how funny it was that I didn’t say anything about how the planet ended up the way it did, purely because I’d forgotten. It was so contrived, I think there was something about plankton dying out and that having a knock on effect on the rest of the sea life! D’amato was so into her role, what a woman! What a pathetic death scene x
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