Since 1975, filmmakers have tried to capture the horror and the magic of a killer shark movie. Jaws broke all kinds of box office records and terrified millions of theater-goers enough that going to the neighborhood pool was panic-inducing. Even the subsequent sequels to that franchise couldn’t recapture the essence of what made Jaws the blockbuster that it became.
Kim Spearman as Sam in Joachim Hedén’s THE LAST BREATH. Photo courtesy of RLJE Films. An RLJE Films Release.
From B and C grade films like Cruel Jaws (1995), Psycho Pike (1992), and Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976), to the newer fare like Deep Blue Sea (1999), The Shallows (2016), and 47 Meters Down (2017), there have been decades of killer shark films, and the best of them, for my money, are the ones that do two things — keep the shark hidden if they have bad CGI and have a plausible story. If you fail at one or both of those, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle to win over the audience.
Director Joachim Hedén (Breaking Surface) brings great white sharks back to the big screen, this time in the Caribbean. The film starts off with a warship in WWII going down, the survivors are amongst the wreckage and getting picked off by sharks. The water photography is actually really well done. The cold open feels pretty visceral and it’s shot well. It’s nerve-racking and a bit scary until the sharks are visible. Poor CGI sharks that look like something out of a video game in a very modern film are the main issue with this film. The cinematography and lighting are sleek and actually do the film a lot of favors, particularly the underwater photography, but once the sharks enter, there is no longer any fear as they are so goofy looking that it takes you out completely.
Hayden Grech as Jimmy in Joachim Hedén’s THE LAST BREATH. Photo courtesy of RLJE Films. An RLJE Films Release.
The story itself is shaky, at best. It’s set in the present day and Levi (Julian Sands) is an expat running a tourist dive business in the British Virgin Islands with college dropout Noah (Jack Parr). On a dive after a tropical storm, they come across the wreck of the USS Charlotte, the warship from WWII. Convinced by his friends who are visiting, Noah takes them on a dive to explore the sunken ship which is now home to a bunch of sharks. Right away, this is a lot to take in. How did this ship stay intact for 80 years? The great white sharks that attacked the soldiers have somehow stayed within the ship, even though it’s been moved by the storm? Aside from questions the writers are not interested in answering, the characters are paper thin archetypes, it’s no secret who will be picked off by the sharks.
The scummy finance bro who most certainly will be ripped to shreds, the ex-girlfriend we are supposed to be rooting for is our final girl, and the other two are so peripheral they may as well be wearing red shirts. As the final third of the film plays out underwater, the bulky scuba gear obscures the cast and their faces so that it’s difficult to tell who is who. There are no outstanding character moments to endear them to the audience and they make such terrible choices that it’s hard not to root for the sharks. This is Julian Sands’s (Warlock series; Ocean’s Thirteen) final performance before he died and he is certainly the best part of the film, even though he only has a few scenes.
Julian Sands as Levi in Joachim Hedén’s THE LAST BREATH. Photo courtesy of RLJE Films. An RLJE Films Release.
The poor CGI, lack of characters, and shaky story make this just one of the many misses in the killer shark genre. Not without competent direction from Herén and a few tense scenes, this is a film you can feel safe in avoiding.
In select theaters and VOD July 26th, 2024.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews, streaming
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