Stupid boring

Seriously, for a movie critic, this is the time of the year when it seems that Satan has temporarily won his eternal battle with the hallowed Baby Jesus, and his evil influence has totally taken over our movie screens. Summer is dying, nobody gives a shit, and I have to watch unholy, viciously bad movies for a few weeks before Satan gets pushed out of the cineplex and back into Hell for most of the Oscar season.

Shark Night 3D would seem like potential fun on the surface, simply due to its title. It’s got sharks, and sharks are cool, it’s supposedly at night, and that’s kind of scary, and it’s in 3-D which means there’s going to be blood and teeth coming at your face.

Well, as it turns out, there are hardly any sharks in this thing. I think sharks actually take up a total of two minutes in this movie, and possibly less than that. And sharks attacking at night just means you see even less of the sharks because it’s dark out.

As for the 3D, the effects are dime store terrible. No teeth or blood in your face—just a bunch of cartoon-looking crap effects that wouldn’t scare a jittery toddler. Believe me, I know. There was a toddler at my screening, and all he cared about was blabbing to his mom about random bullshit that was actually far more interesting than the movie.

Sara Paxton stars as The Girl Who Wears a Bikini. She got the role for no other reason than she looks great, actually quite phenomenal, in that bikini. And I will give some props to the wardrobe person that found the bikini. It does wonderful things to her butt shape, accentuates her chest area quite nicely, and is a very pleasant light sky blue color that just sort of makes her look angelic.

Her character actually does have a name, Sara, and I guess a purpose beyond standing around and causing a huge spike in sky blue bikini sales across the nation. She takes her college friends up to her lake house for a wild PG-13 weekend. Yes, Shark Night 3D pusses out with a PG-13 rating, so any of you hoping that it will provide some hardcore carnage and sweet nudity like Piranha 3D can stop hoping. This flick is for squares.

Not long after their arrival, one of Sara’s pals, Malik (Sinqua Walls), loses an arm to a predatory fish during some waterskiing. While it’s a lake, it’s a saltwater lake, so sharks can live there if they damned well please. There are many types of sharks in the water, but we only see quick glimpses of them. Those CGI shots can be costly, so director David R. Ellis keeps them at a minimum and favors the Paxton butt shots.

As it turns out, the sharks are in the water because they were placed there by—you guessed it—evil Louisiana rednecks. They figure footage of people getting eaten by sharks will command big money on the black market. They’ve actually attached cameras to the sharks in hopes of capturing some bloody footage for their own version of Faces of Death, those old videos that supposedly showed people really dying.

I know what you’re thinking: “Hey Mr. Jaded Late Summer Movie Critic, this all sounds like the sort of appropriately stupid stuff meant for empty-headed B-movie fare, and you should just let up and put your brain on hold while watching this sort of thing.” You’re either thinking that, or something akin to “Aw, man, chicken again!” depending on how close it is to dinner time when you’re reading this.

Shark Night 3D is stupid boring as opposed to stupid fun. Or, don’t believe me. Go to this film, support it, and allow Satan to continue his horrifying late summer reign.