Cage Dive (2017)

Review

"Tomorrow it's going to be us, right in there" - Megan Murphy

Three Americans, Jeff, his girlfriend Megan, and brother Josh head Downunder for some adventure which culminates in a cage dive in South Australia's shark infested waters. The trio are hoping to get on some extreme adventure television show and win $100k. Anyways they land in Sydney, party on with the local relatives, and we learn Megan and Josh have the hots for each other, right after Jeff discloses he is going to ask Megan to marry him. Gosh that's not going to end well, even without sharks.

Down in South Oz they get their shark cage on, which is unfortunate as a rogue wave sinks the tour vote and somehow, not quite sure on this, also jettisons their collective arses from the cage. Naturally there are other survivors and naturally there are honking big sharks looking for a free meal, carnage in the water ensues as the relationship between our three main characters starts to breakdown, and they start to make dumb mistakes.

To clear up some confusion here, Cage Dive is a limited budget Aussie movie about people facing off against sharks, however for foreign distribution the movie was named Open Water 3: Cage Dive to catch some of that franchise's appeal. Unfortunately since the Open Water franchise doesn't exactly need a larger boat this strategy is possibly going to be a bit of a disaster. At least this time we have actual great white sharks rather than the reef sharks the first movie in the franchise had, you know the none dangerous ones that the dude should have known all about as all he seemed to do was sit on his arse watching documentaries about sharks.

To Cage Dive itself, sorry to report folks but we are talking a sort of mockumentary mixed in with found footage, which might be a unique approach, though to be honest it probably has been done before. Okay I'm not going to send this movie to bed without its dinner for being quasi found footage, I have zero problems with the approach if done right, but I am going to push it for trying a little too hard to channel The Blair Witch project, even down to Megan trying hysterically to re-invent Heather's snotty monologue to camera. So what we get is a found footage movie wrapped in a mockumentary that neatly bookends the happenings in the main block of the movie, unfortunately this approach kind of ensures we know the fates of the main characters before the end credits roll.

The movie is on a hiding to nothing right from the get go as our three mains are really not likeable. Jeff is your typical Californian apparently do nothing but partying dudes, his notable traits are a heart condition and being obnoxious. Josh is pretty much cut from the same Californian cloth and has no problems getting it on with his brother's girlfriend. And finally Megan is two timing as well as given to hysterics at the drop of a hat. Now this is just the crew you want when things go pear shaped, they can clearly handle anything extreme thrown at them except anything, well, extreme. If you thought Heather, Josh, and Mike were self-entitled and clearly unable to cope with the most minor of issues in The Blair Witch Project, then get ready for Megan, Jeff, and Josh to take that to an entirely new level.

Structurally, and hey time to say something nice, this movie does work in a surprising fashion. We get at the start of the movie the mockumentary approach which sets up what we are about to live through. We learn a shark tour boat went down due to a rogue wave with limited survivors; naturally fake news ensues to ensure the general public are up to date with the latest disaster. Naturally the film camera is found by a diver, who is surprisingly unmolested by sharks in supposed shark infested waters. Then we get the actual found footage movie, anyone want to think about filming while treading water, anyways the movie doesn't fail to actually keep us immersed in the aquatic shenanigans going down. And finally things are neatly rounded out with interviews with a couple of the Aussie support cast members. Things are kept pretty tight and are not allowed to stray off the reservation of the main action.

This doesn't excuse some pretty dumb action by our three leads, who seem to be doing their very best to not survive till the end credits. In particular I was impressed with Megan's ability to use a flare gun, which directly leads to a fairly safe situation being eroded and the death of another survivor. We are introduced to the rules when dealing with sharks, no thrashing around in the water etc., which naturally our U.S visitors manage to break every which way including Sunday while being generally hysterical about breaking rules. Now okay this is standard procedure for horror movies, characters make dumb decisions and naturally deserve the consequences coming at them, but just once I would like to see characters making logical choices rather than ones that are made to simply drive the plot along.

In terms of horror this one barely raises a single shiver; sorry to be the bearer of bad news but there isn't even a single tense moment. Sharks attack, sharks take victims, everything happens in quick time so there is never a moment when you suspect someone is actually going to survive. For example early, as in right after the boat capsizes, a dude is in the water bleeding, what do you reckon happens then? If you said a shark attacks and takes him then you are absolutely right, there is no attempt at mixing things up. So if in the movie for scares and nerve shattering developments then you are in the wrong place.

Guess everyone is wondering how the shark effects are achieved. Well a mixture of stock footage and CGI, though to give the Producers their due the CGI is barely noticeable and is seamlessly integrated into the live footage. I was reminded of the quote by Renny Harlin in relation to Deep Blue Sea (1999), the one about the audience not being able to tell the difference between the CGI sharks and the real sharks, in Deep Blue Sea that didn't really hold true but Cage Dive proves it can be achieved. Perhaps the only fault with the movie is you really don't get to see much in terms of shark attack, it's all wham bam thank you Mam, game over man game over.

Surprisingly for a movie featuring plenty of water time T&A is limited to a few chicks in bikinis and not much more, though there might be a little surprise here and there for you. The Gals don't really get much, though whales right, that's got to be worth something.

I snagged Cage Dive from a post Xmas sale down JB HiFi and was firstly surprised, given the U.S leads, that the movie was Australian, and secondly that it was found footage. Overall while the movie didn't ring any of my bells I could still see there was some talent involved in making the flick. With a larger budget we may have gotten a more intense experience but hey you go with what you are given. I'm going to put this one down to check it out if into shark movies otherwise not a requirement for the modern dark genre viewer.