SHARK ATTACK 3: MEGALODON

Colima, Mexico. It is the summer season, the beaches are starting to fill up with tourists ready to surf or sunbathe, but something in the ocean waves begins to spoil that nice vacation atmosphere. In the waters, there is a great danger lurking, extremely ferocious and enormous sharks start infesting the sea and sowing panic and death among the swimmers. Young beach guard Ben Carter will find himself involved in this unpleasant situation and, with the help of Cat, a young shark expert, will discover that the "monsters" that inhabit the sea waters are not common sharks, but Megalodons, ancient ancestors of the common white shark, enormous fish that were believed to have been extinct for centuries. It was 1998 when "Shark Attack" was released for the home video market only, an inferior film about genetically modified sharks that could easily win the award for the worst "shark-movie" of all time (also because Casper Van Dien, a terrible actor as always, was in the role of the protagonist). The film had no success (logically!!), but a year later they decided to make a sequel anyway, and in 1999 "Shark Attack 2" was released, a film even worse than the previous one and could easily win the award for the most trashy "shrak-movie" of all time. This was also a total flop (even more logically!!) and the following year no further sequel was released, people began to think that with the "Shark Attack" series, thank God, no one had to deal with it anymore. But then came the year 2002 and a new film was released on the shelves of video stores, a new film about killer sharks called "Shark - Shark Emergency," what could it be about? Well, yes, after three years here comes the film that no one would have ever wanted to see made, it is "Shark Attack 3," the third chapter of the series that hides behind a fake title (was it a smart move by the distributor to lure a few more unsuspecting viewers?), but which will soon be exposed and released with its real title, "Shark Attack 3 - Shark Emergency." Perhaps it was hoped that by making a trilogy, the "Shark Attack" series would be a series that would eventually begin to gain some fame, fame that will not be denied since it is the most inferior and horrible series about killer sharks, a saga that, starting from a very bad first chapter, continued to get worse in a truly impressive way, film after film. "Shark Attack 3" appears as a simply absurd film, a film that at the end makes you ask the question: Was what I just saw a joke? No one would have ever imagined that there existed in the world some crazy producer willing to finance a really abominable project like "Shark Attack 3": a basic idea, seen a thousand times and not interesting in itself, is completely worsened by an embarrassingly bad script that, staying on topic, leaks from all sides. Incredible for a film of this kind, but this movie manages wonderfully to bore: no chilling scene in the style of "Jaws" is present in this crazy piece of junk; the dialogues are of a unique banality (just take the example of the scene where the girl shoots a shark that was about to devour her and what does she say? "You are extinct, son of a bitch!" ... a line that even Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn't have wanted to say as a final punchline in one of his movies); not to mention then the absolutely two-dimensional characters and the absurdity of some sequences (like in the scene where a cruise ship is attacked by a huge shark and the people to save themselves from the ship jump into the water ... but don't they know that the sharks are in the water?). Overlooking other infinite errors that the script offers us, let's quickly move on to the direction entrusted to David Worth ("Shark Attack 2"), as flat as a surfboard and more television than possible, and let's dwell a bit more on the actors. There is no famous face in this film, the cast is made up of really unknown people and with no experience in the film industry, especially the two protagonists, John Barrowman and Jenny McShanem (respectively Ben and Cat), two actors who do not manage to get into their characters at all and who do not even realize that they are acting in a film. But a separate discussion would deserve the rendering of the sharks. Every time the sharks are seen acting, as per the series' characteristic, scenes stolen from some shark documentary are inserted (and it is very clear), while very rarely a more than fake papier-mâché puppet is used. But what really impresses in this film is the rendering of the final shark, a Megalodon of enormous size (bigger than a building) that goes around eating whole ships (I'm not joking!); if already the idea of a shark emerging from the water to eat a ship can seem absurd, it is absolutely necessary to see the miserable way in which this is realized: the collage technique is used, that is, there is always the same scene that shows the shark's head emerged from the waters (and clearly stolen from some documentary) and between its jaws the ship (or people) that is about to be devoured is roughly mounted ... a thing so absurd that it is hard to explain. And finally, what does that ending want to convey?? Does it want to hint at a "Shark Attack 4"? Anyway, in conclusion, this "Shark Attack 3" is perhaps the worst film on the theme of "shark-movies," a film absolutely embarrassing from all points of view. It is strongly advised against watching it unless you are looking for a good laugh.