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Monday, November 8, 2021
Great White (2021)
Streaming Service: Shudder
Movie Name/Year: Great White (2021) Genre: Horror, Thriller Length: 91 minutes Rating: Unrated Production/Distribution: Thrills & Spills, Altitude Media Group, Chop Shop
Post, Cornerstone Pictures, Filmology Finance, Piccadilly Pictures,
ProdigyMovies, Truth or Dare, Golden Village Pictures, Just Entertainment, RLJE
Films, A Contracorriente Films, EuroVideo, Synapse, Shudder Director: Martin Wilson Writers: Michael Boughen Actors: Aaron Jakubenko, Jason Wilder,
Kate Jaggard, Katrina Bowden, Kimie Tsukakoshi, Patrick Atchison, Tatjana
Marjanovic, Te Kohe Tuhaka, Tim Kano IMDb Blurb: A fun filled flight to a remote
atoll turns into a nightmare for five passengers when their seaplane is
destroyed in a freak accident and they are trapped on a raft, 100 miles from
shore with man-eating sharks lurking beneath the surface.
Cat’s Point of View: Great White
originally came to our attention while working on our Top 20 Movies Coming Out in July 2021 article. It made my
list at #20. This seemed right at home in the summer blockbuster season and
just in time for the annual shark-centric content shown on both Nat Geo and
Discovery Channels. The trailer for Great
White was well done and gave me a sense of the drama and thrills in store.
It didn’t try to promise anything sensational that the actual movie couldn’t
deliver. That’s a huge pet peeve of mine. If it’s in the trailer, an audience
will expect to see it. I am still irked, to this day, about a scene in the
original trailer for Twister (1996) that wasn’t in the actual film. It was a
gotcha moment meant to jump-scare the audience and draw them into the theater,
but apparently was left on the cutting room floor when it came to the final
edit. I digress… The point is, what the trailer offers, the production
delivers.
There were a few points that made Great White stand out to me over the usual shark movie tropes. It’s
not often you see a shark vs. plane scenario that’s realistic. We’re not
talking Air Jaws (2001) type action or anything as corny as that. It was a
well-thought moment within the story that made sense, given the situation. Another tidbit that grabbed my attention was the fact that Great White was being handled by the
same Executive Producers as 47 Meters Down (2017). That was a fantastic shark
horror-thriller full of dread and stellar shark action. It gave me hope that we’d
see mostly accurate depictions of the massive sea predators. I’m happy to
relate that this was generally the case. There were a few moments that the
sharks made sounds that the actual live animals simply do not make, but it didn’t
take away from my enjoyment of the moment or the film.
The production for Great
White got a lot of bang for their effects bucks. I believed the sharks on the
screen. They felt a natural part of the scenery and interacted with their
environment. No cheesy effects here, folks! I particularly appreciated how the
different views provided insight into the sharks vs the human castaways –
whether by aerial or underwater shots. Great White’s cast
was firing on all cylinders. There were some dramatic nuances that layered into
the story beyond the whole ‘oh no we’re stranded and being hunted by sharks’
plot points. Without that extra bit of character development, it would have
made it harder to get through the lulls in activity. Critics seem to be beating
Great White up over said lulls,
saying that it made it boring. I have to disagree. While there wasn’t a lot of
action through some scenes, the tension remained high because when you couldn’t
see the shark, you didn’t know when it would strike. It highlighted the natures
of the humans and how they dealt with the crisis and each other. Everyone gave
a really solid performance. All told, Great White
might not be the most innovative or flashiest shark movie of all time, but it
was entertaining and definitely worth the watch if you have a Shudder
subscription. Great White
premieres on Shudder November 11th, 2021.
Rotten
Tomatoes Critic Score –42% Rotten
Tomatoes Audience Score –20% Metascore –45% Metacritic
User Score – 4.3/10 IMDB
Score – 4.1/10 Trust
the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 3/5 Trust
the Dice: Parental Advisory Rating – R Movie Trailer:
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