BAIT

After a tragedy that occurred a year earlier, in which his best friend was devoured by a shark, Josh quit his job as a lifeguard and was hired as a clerk in a supermarket. Just as a robbery is taking place in the store, a tsunami hits the city and the supermarket, with all the people inside, is submerged by water. The survivors of the disaster seek refuge on the shelves, but soon realize that inside the flooded store, a voracious great white shark is prowling. The dangers of the sea have always had a particular fascination for cinema; sharks, on the other hand, have managed to stand out since Spielberg signed that masterpiece titled "Jaws", the father of all shark movies that, in over 35 years, have filled the small and large screens. But after years of dignified marine terrors, the cinematic genre of killer sharks has suddenly become extinct and, following the entertaining "Deep Blue" by Renny Harlin, sharks have become a peculiarity of more or less demented products destined for the pay-per-view and video rental market. If we exclude the dramatic and fundamental "Open Water", in which sharks are only in the background, the only two notable films with shark antagonists seen in recent years have been the effective "The Reef" and the appreciated "Shark Night 3D"... until today, when the Australian "Shark 3D" arrives in Italian theaters. The genesis of "Shark 3D" (which in its original version is titled with the much more effective "Bait", i.e., bait) has been troubled and has been going on for at least 3 years. Originally in the hands of Russell Mulcahy, the historical director of the first two "Highlander" films but also of "Resident Evil: Extinction", who was supposed to direct a subject as simple as appealing written by himself, "Shark" ends up in stand by for a series of reasons ranging from artistic divergences with the production to the work commitments that Mulcahy had taken in the meantime. The film, therefore, is blocked in the search for another director who can complete the work, meanwhile the screenplay is revised and the hypothesis of shooting the film in 3D is pursued. In 2011, finally, everything is realized: "Shark" finds a new director, Kimble Rendall of the questionable "Cut - The Butcher", Mulcahy remains in production and the film is presented in 3D. Beyond some rather snobbish criticisms coming from those who wrongly and preventively associate this title with the recent demented productions of Asylum and the like, "Shark 3D" reaches very good levels that have rarely been seen in a shark movie at least in the last 15 years. We start, however, from a winning high concept: some people trapped in a flooded supermarket at the mercy of killer sharks. It is an unusual place to unleash the killer fish - imagine "The Mist" with sharks instead of interdimensional beings - and the inevitable group dynamics that lead to wrong choices, affections, quarrels, and heroisms. In short, the film works from the start and at that point the only objective is not to ruin the good that is in the air. The director limits himself to performing the task with egregious mastery, without flashes or drops in tone, but infusing the film with a very tight rhythm that makes the spectator immediately participatory. What does not convince is the prologue in which the protagonist is shown dealing with a different shark and the loss of a friend. An incipit that serves, in addition to introducing the threat that will accompany the spectator for the remaining 90 minutes of the film, to give a traumatic background to the main character, an unnecessary and forced element, with the effect that the prologue is almost intrusive compared to the rest of the work, also due to the immediate temporal leap applied. From that moment on, however, there is plenty of adrenaline, B-movie characters with a minimum of definition that makes them memorable and more or less expendable and two sharks that cause all sorts of trouble. Two, because in addition to the approximately 4-meter great white shark that prowls around the supermarket shelves, there is another equally large and hungry one in the parking lot below the store that also makes its move on the three survivors trying to reach the surface. The sharks are realized very well with a mix of good computer graphics and, above all, animatronics that show the mouths in all their terrifying splendor. Unlike many other films on the subject, here the sharks are of realistic size and appearance, but not for this less lethal, since they give life to a series of very gory deaths that will make the happiness of the fans. The cast is uneven and alternates good craftsmen like Julian McMahon ("Nip/Tuck"; "The Fantastic Four") with young not very memorable ones like the protagonist Xavier Samuel ("Three Men and a Sheep"). There are also Alex Russel of "Chronicle", Shami Vinson of "Step Up 3D" and Phoebe Tonkin of "The Tomorrow That Will Come". Good the 3D, never invasive and used with a successful sense of spectacle for some relevant playful effects that in the end are those that are remembered with greater pleasure. "Shark 3D" is therefore a good B-movie that adds to an original context a lot of rhythm and spectacular finds that in the finale become almost action movie. You don't get bored and between the tension sometimes really palpable and a shark that comes out literally from the screen, you spend 90 minutes of true entertainment.