Awful Movie Madness: Shark Week 2015

This isn't one of those dumb, ridiculous, over-the-top shark movies where they just go around discovering ancient species of massive prehistoric super sharks and downloading copies of Hitler's brain onto them, or chumming the waters off of Gansbaai with super-meth in the name of some retarded made-up branch of behavioral science while ruggedly handsome foreigners get oiled up and squeeze into scuba suits so they can wrestle around with CGI mockups of Air Jaws in the open ocean^[1]. No. This is a proper, good old-fashioned classic shark thriller.

Dark Tide nicely follows the standard shark-movie formula: take a pathetic, miserable has-been - preferably one with nice cans, preferably freshly washed up from either a string of flops, shameless franchise cash-grab(s), and/or humiliating bender(s) - then try desperately to create artificial tension for 2 hours using nothing but a handful of painfully obvious telegraphed fish bites, and a story arc as complicated as Act (I) Sharks not eating people Act (II) Sharks eating people now, The End.

Okay, so maybe that's not really the classic shark thriller formula, but close enough for us, especially compared to the other two movies on this week's list. So what's Dark Tide actually about? A professional "shark whisperer" or something? Wow, great guess. Yep, Halle Berry plays a "Deep-Water Shark Tamer", which we'd say ranks right up there in Fake Fantasy Jobs for Idiot Movies Written by Idiots Who've Never Read an Actual Job Listing right along with "Senior Mattress Tester", "Money Salesman", "Federal Boob Inspector", and "Professional Writer". Speaking of Halle Berry, did we mention that she acts like a really obnoxious 12 year old gobbling up Adderall like Lucky Charms for most of the movie?

So how about that...whatever the fuck that was? We're not gonna be all mean and say Barry's acting is so bad we wish they'd revoke her Monster's Ball Oscar retroactively over it or anything, or make some really snide sarcastic joke about how she can always get another job as Jennifer Lopez's understudy after this, but there were a few moments there where we were legitimately concerned that if Dark Tide got any worse it would literally transform into Catwoman right before our eyes.

Still, when Halle gets us into the water, we can't help but find there's something tranquil, almost meditative about swimming fin-to-fin with this gruesome, soulless, doll-eyed creature in the briny depths from which it was spawned for whatever mysterious godless purpose to haunt the dreams of man. Plus the shark is pretty cool too, we guess. Especially when it starts eating the annoying people^[2].

We defy you to really roll your sleeves up, plunge deep into the chunky pail of slurried sea scum that is the cast of Dark Tide and draw back up with you a single worthwhile character or moment of any kind - we'll clean & gut 'em for free. Seriously, can't be done.

Choice Quotable Lines to Repeat While Watching Actual Shark Week:

• "The only way you can really learn about sharks is to get out of the cage and actually swim with them" - Famous World-Renowned Shark Scientist
• "In order to swim with a shark, you have to think like a shark" - this must be easy for a lifeless walking human doll
• "How do you make a girl sound like a dolphin?" "...You stick your willy just near her bum and she goes Ah-ah, Ah-ah!" - no comment
• Some poachers who literally say "We're poachers, hehe!" while getting in the water

You should watch this movie if:

• You have a fetish that involves watching smug French guys screaming at bloody severed torsos
• You have a fetish that involves watching smug British guys get bitten in half by giant sharks
• You have a fetish that involves wasting 113 minutes of your life watching a shark movie with only 8 minutes worth of sharks in it
• You want to watch great whites off the coast of South Africa do amazing dramatic backflips out of the water to catch seals, but you'd rather hear the version with insufferable douchebags talking over it instead of David Attenborough for some reason

[1] OK, well maybe it is that last one a little bit.

[2] Spoiler alert: Halle Berry and her unbelievably punchable French boyfriend go tragically uneaten. Sorry.