Good concept, poorly executed.

Beautiful, moving film.

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

After receiving an incomplete E-Mail from a good friend concerning large numbers of sharks off the coast of Africa, "Steven McKray" (Casper Van Dien) travels to that area to provide assistance. However, when he gets there he is told that his friend, "Marc Desantis" (Cordell McQueen) has died in a shark attack. He also discovers that the facts related to his friend's death don't add up. This prompts him and Marc's sister, "Corine Desantis" (Jennifer McShane) to investigate the area where the supposed accident happened. They then discover certain irregularities that cannot be explained as mere coincidence and begin to suspect a human connection to the increase in shark attacks. Now rather than reveal any more of this film and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that for a made-for-television movie this particular picture wasn't too bad. Naturally, considering the limitations placed on a film of this sort the viewer should probably take this into consideration to a certain extent. That said there were no scenes involving graphic language or of a sexual nature. There were, however, several good shark scenes and the plot had enough intrigue to remain interesting for the most part. Even so the movie seemed a bit mild compared to other films in this genre and because of that I have to rate it as slightly below average.

With this being a "B" movie, and having a title like SHARK ATTACK, you are probably thinking this will be some kind of JAWS rip-off, with plenty of exploitation material. Think again. The sharks are at times almost an afterthought. In fact, in the last half hour of the movie, there are almost no shark sightings! Obviously, the production didn't have the money to make fake sharks, or that much blood or gore, so don't think you're going to see anything like that. As for the rest of the movie, there's not much fun to be seen there as well. Van Dien gives a bland performance, possibly due to the fact the movie moves at a sluggish pace and is downright dull at times, even during the action sequences. The low budget also results in an incredible number of close-ups by the camera and few "wide" shots, cheap sets, and signs (always using the same kind of font) that seem written by people whose command of English is not their first language. As for why this movie was (apparently) popular enough to spawn two sequels, I confess I haven't a clue, unless it is cheap to film in South Africa as I've heard.

"Shark Attack" is a certainly fun if flawed killer shark movie.**SPOILERS**In Cape Amanzi, South Africa, Steven McKray, (Casper Van Dien) is astonished to learn of a series of shark attacks and goes to investigate. When Lawrence Rhodes, (Ernie Hudson) introduces him to old friend Dr. Miles Craven, (Bentley Mitchum) he tells him moire about the attacks, including the death of a friend. Meeting up with Corinne Desantis, (Jennifer McShane) the sister, they dive to find out that the sharks attracted to a specific area of the bay through an outside chemical hormone introduced into the sharks that drives them into a frenzy. When the thing is revealed to be about finding an oil reserve in the bay and using the attacks as cover to force the residents out of their land, they try to find the one responsible before more of the community is attacked by the sharks.The Good News: This here wasn't that bad of a film. One of it's best aspects is that there's a lot of encounters with the sharks, and that leads to a lot of fun. The shark attacks, which don't have much of the time, do get really interesting when they occur, such as a thrilling encounter out at sea with a boat-full of partying residents that leaves a survivor with a serious leg bite. Other encounters, such as the one near the shipping wreck or in the bay near the lab has some more fun in store. One of the overall best scenes in the film is the lengthy cage-diving scene, which are incredible. Packed into a ten-minute sequence is a continuing series of scenes where they try out converters on the sharks, and it all leads to never-ending scenes of sharks banging into the cages with them trapped inside, making for a tense and uneasy encounter. The dives done into the waters are always uneasy, although the night-time ones are a little more-so for the inherent virtue of when the occur. The last big part of this is the great action that occurs in here, and there's a lot of it. There's two really fun chases, a multi-car chase through open-fields which includes a lot of gunfire, high-speed weaving, crashes and more, as well as a boat chase that is really exciting. Lots of objects get blown up and destroyed in both, making them even more fun. There's also the final raid on the villain's hideout, which is great. Packed with gunfights, fist-fights and brawling, lots of deaths and even more destruction that occurs, it's pretty exciting and ends with the helicopter scene, which is really fun and makes the film even better. All of these make the film what it is.The Bad News: There was a couple of problems to this that hold it down somewhat. The main feat is that the sharks, for all their encounters, are rarely mentioned in the middle segment of the film and fade into the background during these scenes, focusing more on the false lead of the cancer study that soon turns into the oil scam. During this, the sharks are absent as it's all done on land, leaving it to be relatively dull for lengthy portions while there's no shark action, leaving them with little time in their own film, as the longest stretch is the cage-diving sequence. Outside of that, the attacks are over quite early, which is another flaw. The sharks are very easily able to be repelled or escaped, and from the knowledge that they're engineered to be angry and better killers, they have very little actual deaths that they're responsible for. Most of the attacks shown in the film are escaped, which compared to the ones that were mentioned as fatalities before is a little strange. It makes them seem like far less reliable killers since the victims know are able to get away when before they couldn't, and that's not what you want in a creature feature. That's the most detrimental feature of the film, the lowering of the shark's capabilities in a far-more reduced manner than they should to accommodate the plot. The last flaw is the shark effects, which, as to be expected, is terribly uneven. Thankfully, no CGI is present but there is the matter of the real shark stock footage that is used for most of the scenes. They're fine if never once able to keep a constant perspective, either changing in size from scene-to-scene or even species as well. The other part is that the mechanical ones look rather nice but are too stiff, rarely moving and used mostly just to make sure that something is there. It's obvious to pick these out and they lower the scene somewhat. Otherwise, these are the film's problems.The Final Verdict: With a couple of good points and some detrimental flaws to it, this one ends up being rather fun with some problems. Give it a shot if you enjoy action-packed killer shark films, a fan of the genre or find these kinds of creature features interesting, otherwise there's better ones out there.Rated R: Violence and Language

Let's not waste too many words on this piece of junk, as I certainly don't want to be the one responsible to raise any interest and make more people suffer through it. "Shark Attack" is an unendurably stupid movie with no redeeming elements whatsoever: unoriginal plot, lame and overly fake action-sequences, no tension dull characters and – worst of all – absolutely no sense of humor! I usually like B-creature features but there's nothing as pathetic as an animals-revolting-violently-against-humans premise that takes itself too seriously! The completely untalented Casper Van Dien stars as a scientist (yeah…he sure looks like one) who travels to an African fishing town because the increasing amount of shark attacks there and one of the victims was his old high school buddy Marc. Upon arrival he discovers that another scientist is trying to genetically use the sharks for the developing of a cancer vaccine. Breeding sharks for medical reasons, hmm… Now where have we seen that before? Oh yeah, Renny Harlin did the same with his "Deep Blue Sea" and that wasn't a very good film neither! Some of the dialogues are so bad they hurt your ears and the acting is really lousy. There's no horror here, neither, unless you consider the dissection of several shark-cadavers to be grueling. The James-Bond style climax is ridiculous and the concluding moral of the film is that animals can't be mean-spirited by nature…humans always the evil driving force behind everything. Yawn! Better watch "Jaws" again, even though it's for the 200th time.