Dark Tide (2012)

It seems that a lot of people who review films in here try to make themselves sound clever and copy terms used by movie critics. But judging this film on it's merits rather what others say they think I loved it. Probably the most realistic shark movie I have seen ( let's face it Jaws looked like a fake shark and only the great acting saved it ) how they managed to film some of the sequences is beyond me especially the one where the guy near the beginning holds the Sharks nose and then gets killed. Now a word about the criticism of the lovely Halle Berry. These idiots saying she can't act, looks to glamorous etc are way off the mark in my opinion. In truth she would still look gorgeous if she had been dragged through a bush, but I don't think there was any attempt by her to look overly glam. She had me convinced and looked exactly the way I would expect her too. In the water she was amazing (unless that was a stunt double swimming?) OK the story had holes but so did Jaws and many other films like this but it was tense and had me on the edge of my seat at times. The only downside was the rather abrupt ending.

I didn't know much about the plot before I saw this movie. I figured that it probably wouldn't be to bad and since it has some known faces I expected at least a decent story. I was wrong. The story and the movie are bad and the acting is nothing special. The one redeeming feature is the beautiful scenery of Cape Town and it's surrounding areas. Having been in that part of South Africa it was nice to see them again. The story could have made sense but by the end there are too many plot holes and things that don't make sense. A marine biologist (played by Halle Berry) who has spent 10 years studying sharks and swimming with them is involved in a shark attack at the start of the movie. Her friend is killed and as a result she has withdrawn from the shark diving world and and takes tourists on boat rides and shows them seals and penguins. She is in financial dire straits and her estranged husband (Oliver Martinez) proposes a deal for them to take out a rich tourist and his son to swim with sharks. He offers them 100 000 euros (in local currency over 1 Million Rand) for this. Berry's character reluctantly accepts the offer since she is tricked into believing that someone paying that kind of money will be happy with the promise of being taken out to sea and maybe seeing sharks. She promises she will show them seals, and if sharks happen to be present then great. The tourist promises to stay in the shark diving cage until Berry calls him out when it is safe if they do dive with sharks.When they are out in the ocean they go near Seal Island which is world renowned for having an area around the island known as the kill zone where most shark attacks on seals happen. To make matters worse it is the middle of mating season. So yes, they are taking tourists out to swim in the kill zone in the middle of shark mating season. At first the rich tourist is told to stay in the shark diving cage but he disregards the instructions and goes out within a few minutes of the dive. This annoys Berry' and she wants to call the whole thing off. Instead she gets into an argument with her husband and changes her mind and decides to take them further out to sea in storm like weather where they can see some really big sharks of up to 20 feet. I am not making this up, she literally changes her mind after a shouting argument with her husband and makes a great decision of taking out a small ship into the middle if the ocean in rough conditions with relatively inexperienced and annoying divers. On top of this, they had steering problems with the boat but the assistant fixed it so they go on anyway. When they get there she goads the tourist into diving without the cage, even though he changed his mind by then. So all of a sudden from being indecisive Berry is almost pushing the man to go into the open water without the protection of a cage. At one point I literally expected them to start riding the sharks rodeo style or jump down their throats (which in fact would have been more preferable). As is to be expected the storm tips the boat over and some of the characters are attacked and killed by sharks. There are also minor annoyances in the movie that make it even worse. The tourist lights up a cigarette when he gets on the boat but Berry tells him there is no smoking on her boat. She however doesn't have a problem with him drinking beer even though he is going to go diving with sharks. I guess tipsy or drunk tourists are better for shark diving than those nasty smokers. She also does nothing when her husband light up. She also doesn't take any air cylinders on board because sharks don't like bubbles apparently. They don't much like idiotic plot lines either and in that aspect they are very similar to us movie watchers. The acting: Berry tries to carry off a look of indecisiveness and vulnerability but she looks prissy and as if she stepped off of a modeling catwalk. Her husband tries to be caring and helpful but looks dodgy with ulterior motives. Their assistant is supposed to be the comic relief but he is more or less annoying especially when playing a game on his iPad (in the game he is the shark getting points for eating surfers). The rich tourist is a just annoying and not likable at all, and his son is irrelevant and there to fill the boat and some screen time. I lived in Cape Town, and know people who dived with sharks and who are certified divers and they would never go out in middle of shark mating season, in bad weather with inexperienced divers and then almost force them out of the cage. They especially wouldn't do that when the Great White Shark is the shark they are after. So it is just nonsense, because no one in their right mind would behave the way they do. There is also a scene at the beginning where poachers are shown diving for abalone near the kill zone of seal island in the dark. I mean are they insane, why not attach some nice juicy steaks to their dive suits whilst they are at it. Overall this movie attempts to be a character driven movie with sub-plots and stories. It fails abysmally in this since by the end of the movie you care more about the sharks then the people. Give this a miss, you might as well watch the discovery channel for shots of beautiful scenery and sharks.

My girlfriend and I, who are huge fan's of Discovery Channels yearly Shark Week, watched this movie Dark Tide despite all the bad reviews.. and our shark instincts were dead-on! This is actually the best Hollywood movie to ever come out on sharks! Every other movie about sharks, from Jaws to all the other silly horror flicks about sharks to the even sillier Sharknado, #1) don't show any real sharks (just fake ones) whereas this Film shows real breath-taking Great White sharks in the open ocean - the filmmakers very own actual footage on location in the shark-infested South Africa, & #2) all the other shark movies just perpetuate the same misconceptions about sharks, whereas this is like an episode of Discovery's Shark Week, except its delivered from within a Film plot starring Halle Berry and her BF Olivier Martinez (both of whom do a good job). In addition, all the reviewers are completely ignorant to what this movie is really about... they're obviously not Shark Week fans, because if they were, they would realize that this movie Dark Tide is really about the amazingly spiritual & break-thru shark research done by Mike Rutzen who is also known as the Sharkman, (whom this movie credits at the end) who on one of the best episodes of Shark Week a couple years ago showed that these apex predators also are creatures that need to give & receive nurture & affection; and he even not just swims but also plays and like literally is cuddled by many different species of "deadly" sharks, including Great Whites, like as if they were cats or dogs snuggling next to their human owners. So this movie is loosely based on Mike Rutzen (his videos actually way supercede this movie), a true scientist and biologist and nature-lover (at least in the opinion of this scientist and human M.D. trauma surgeon;)

OMG !! Halle Berry why? why baby!? By all means the worst shark movie ever!! 94 minutes while it should be 30 or 35 at most! It's not a documentary and for sure it's not a movie!!why? here are why : 1-No real storyline. 2- Looooooong booooring underwater footage with absolutely no meaning. 3- Shallow characters. 4- awful sound track. 5-below average acting ! 6-more looooooong boooooring underwater footage!! 7-no excitement what so ever !overall a total waste of time and believe me I love Halle Berry but this movie-like thing is going to make me think twice before I watch any shark movie or Halle Berry's movie !