Sadly Over-hyped

Beautiful, moving film.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

WARNING: Plot Details. Not ending.The film takes place in scenic South Africa. We get the National Geographic tour. The film starts out great showing us Halle Berry's cleavage, a guy filming her cleavage, and then they throw a shark into the film...and no more cleavage. Halle's hobby is to pet Great Whites in open water out of a cage. She is married to Jeff who films the action. So when sharks suddenly behave badly, Halle quits diving with them.After a year, Jeff is trying to get back with Halle. The have fights about the relationship. The film contains Halle doing a first person philosophical narration and the music is very tame, not what one expects for an action/thriller. Halle who has spent 10 years in the water doesn't like the smell of fish and screams when someone tries to push her in. Clearly this is an action flick written for women, or by a woman (Amy Sorlie). In one scene Jeff apologizes for whatever it was that made Halle angry. Halle is angry that he doesn't know why she is angry and won't tell him...because he should know! She finally says, "You have no idea what's wrong with me!"As Halle's business starts to fail, a wealthy Brit (Ralph Brown) trying to connect with his son (Mark Elderkin) wants to swim with Great Whites without a cage. Halle is reluctant but agrees.They set out in the water to go dancing with sharks. And if everything went well, there wouldn't be a movie. Dad fights with son, Jeff fights with dad, Halle fights with Jeff, and Halle fights with dad. At this point I was hoping a two headed mega shark would swallow the whole boat. The climatic scene I can't detail because I have no idea what is happening. Everyone is in the same dark suits and it is dark. The full view film of the sharks appear to be stock footage. (Ed Wood would be so proud.) This is more of a drama with some poorly shot action scenes.No f-bombs (that I caught), sex, or nudity. Some PG-13 name calling. Might be enjoyed by women who like a soft female lead in an "action thriller."

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.

What possessed someone with Halle Berry's acting chops to take on this very tepid melodrama is anyones guess.The film starts out promisingly enough with a suspenseful shark attack that delivers the goods, but quickly degenerates in soap-opera-ish melodrama that never really engages or interests the viewer on any level.Berry phones in her performance on this show, and whilst some of the cinematography is beautiful I certainly didn't see $25 million on screen. It all just reeks a little of missed opportunity to me. I can see why the film was relegated to the DVD bargain bin in so many territories.While Dark Tide isn't a terrible film, it's certainly not a good one either.A feeble 4...

Shark Valley near the Cape in Southern Africa is the optimal place for cage diving with the Great White. Or in the case of Kate Mathieson (Halle Berry) a superior opportunity to free dive with the monstrous sea fauna. Enticed by the intelligence and ferocious beauty, Kate dedicates her life to understanding the animals, thus earning the nickname Shark Whisperer. However, once her whispering remains unheard and a pesky shark chows down her father figure. This leads to Kate retreating from the water and leading a rundown life of ocean tour operator verging on bankruptcy. That is until her quasi-husband Jeff (Olivier Martinez) brings an offer that cannot be refused: entertain millionaire Will Brady (Ralph Brown) and his son Luke (Luke Tyler) the opportunity to swim with sharks in exchange for an obscene amount of cash.Save for monetary gain and the vacation of a lifetime, "Dark Tide" fails to truly deliver any explanation for its existence. Director John Stockwell obviously felt some one-on-one full-frontal action with sharks would make for a good movie, especially if it also incorporates hi-fives with seals, low-fives with penguins, riding the waves with dolphins and Halle Berry donning a bikini. Given the sharks turned out to be decent actors, the same can't however be said about the rest of the cast, who imitate impressions of former glory just to get a paycheck and have as much time to benefit from the surroundings as possible. The only somewhat interesting character is the obnoxious Will Brady, charmless and obvious fish chowder before the end credits. However, honestly I was hoping the rest of the cast get munched up as soon as possible, leaving the sharks to take over the remaining runtime and play out the remainder of the movie as a National Geographic documentary.The clumsy script naturally doesn't help, not sure of whether its more on the side of "The Big Blue" action-drama or the "Jaws" thriller-killer. Thankfully or not, the sharks seem to have the best fleshed out characters, not senseless killers, but predatory animals which work within their own set of rules. Overseeing them is a clichéd and lumbered tale with no ambition or zeal.