Shark flick sinks to bottom of ocean
By Xie Fangyuan |
October 14, 2012, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
"BAIT 3D" is a horror-thriller from the B-movie genre that doesn't quite understand what it's all about.
The plot is simple enough for some good fun, thrills and scares, but director Kimble Rendall doesn't deliver the goods.
Set in Australia, a tsunami floods a supermarket and underground parking garage, trapping a bunch of people conveniently inside with two great white sharks.
Right off the bat, one thinks many of the characters will become shark food and the fun is in guessing how and which ones will be chomped. Annoyingly "Bait" doesn't give the audience much satisfaction in this regard unlike others in the genre like the campy "Snakes on a Plane."
Perhaps for locals, the biggest point of interest attached to the film is that it's a Sino-Australian production and was filmed in Beijing.
The movie stars Sharni Vinson, Xavier Samuel, Julian McMahon and Alex Russell. Most of the film they are perched on top of supermarket shelves in wet clothing while trying to figure out how to escape the razor sharp teeth of the sharks.
Of course, most of the characters were complete strangers to one another before their predicament, but scriptwriters John Kim and Russell Mulcahy do try to force in a romance between the shark chase scenes.
"Bait" brings to mind another killer shark film, not Steven Spielberg's "Jaws," but "Deep Blue Sea," directed by Renny Harlin and released in 1999, which was another colossal failure in cinematic history.
To be fair, the special effects in "Bait" provide a few moments of awe and wonder, but no where near enough to save the film.
It feels as though Kendall didn't have the guts to really go for a home run and let the sharks wreak more havoc on his cast. It's a crying shame, most of them deserved to be eaten based on their performances.
In the end, "Bait" lacks bite.
The plot is simple enough for some good fun, thrills and scares, but director Kimble Rendall doesn't deliver the goods.
Set in Australia, a tsunami floods a supermarket and underground parking garage, trapping a bunch of people conveniently inside with two great white sharks.
Right off the bat, one thinks many of the characters will become shark food and the fun is in guessing how and which ones will be chomped. Annoyingly "Bait" doesn't give the audience much satisfaction in this regard unlike others in the genre like the campy "Snakes on a Plane."
Perhaps for locals, the biggest point of interest attached to the film is that it's a Sino-Australian production and was filmed in Beijing.
The movie stars Sharni Vinson, Xavier Samuel, Julian McMahon and Alex Russell. Most of the film they are perched on top of supermarket shelves in wet clothing while trying to figure out how to escape the razor sharp teeth of the sharks.
Of course, most of the characters were complete strangers to one another before their predicament, but scriptwriters John Kim and Russell Mulcahy do try to force in a romance between the shark chase scenes.
"Bait" brings to mind another killer shark film, not Steven Spielberg's "Jaws," but "Deep Blue Sea," directed by Renny Harlin and released in 1999, which was another colossal failure in cinematic history.
To be fair, the special effects in "Bait" provide a few moments of awe and wonder, but no where near enough to save the film.
It feels as though Kendall didn't have the guts to really go for a home run and let the sharks wreak more havoc on his cast. It's a crying shame, most of them deserved to be eaten based on their performances.
In the end, "Bait" lacks bite.
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