Planet of the Sharks: Hey, at least they tried

The opening credits show a submerged Statue of Liberty so immediately, you know what you’re gonna get… Waterworld with sharks. The people live on the surface of the sea and get attacked by a school of sharks right out of the gate. Say what you want about this film, but the action is constant throughout the entire movie. No breaks.

All the folks get eaten except one girl that is stuffed into a barrel. I’m not sure why she is saved since she contributed exactly fuck all to the movie. Anyhoo, another floating city, Salvation, sees the flare and the girl is rescued by a beefcake type named Barrick. There is also a floating oceanic research station called Vestron. Vestron is building a CO2 scrubber rocket to try to reverse global warming. You see, the poles have melted, turning earth into a watery wonderland. It is getting hotter every day and this rocket is inexplicably the solution to the problem.

Let me stop here and explain that the science in this movie is a bit…questionable. There is a lot going on and a lot of characters to follow. I think this is their way of confusing you into thinking this is a great movie. Science! Oh and over here science! Oh there’s some more science over there! It’s exhausting. I have whiplash now.

It soon becomes clear that climate change is killing the oceans, thus killing the fishies. And what do sharks eat? Fishies. Well, now they eat people. Also, there is an alpha female shark that is using electromagnetic fields to control all the sharks of the sea to do her bidding. You know which one is the alpha because her face is all glittery like she went down on a stripper.

At one point, Vestron goes to Salvation to ask for their iridium that they need for the rocket. Salvation is ruled by a crazy bitch with a bad Cajun accent. Her people do wacky war dances and grunt a lot and kill sharks. It’s all very Ghosts of Mars and they are just assholes. So they all get eaten too.

The head scientists who are both women (huzzah!) decide to lure the sharks into a submarine volcano and blow it up using a transmitter thingy. They send a guy in an ultralight plane to drop the thingy in the volcano but he gets eaten. So what’s a safer way to do this? Windsurfing!

Back at Vestron, they need to cannibalize the parts of the rocket to get the transmitter to work. They send a beam into the ionosphere (are you fucking exhausted yet?) that will activate the transmitter and make the volcano go boom. So all that shit happens…BUT…

It triggers a tsunami (sigh) and Vestron used all its power to explode the volcano. The scientists decide to tap into and decode the alpha shark’s telepathy to mimic her and redirect the sharks to kill her. Also they want to use her as a battery to jump start the rocket.

Jesus I need a beer from just typing this shit.

So does all this pseudoscience and technical blathering do them any good in the end? I ain’t telling you. Honestly, I didn’t hate this movie. It moves quickly, the characters are likeable and the acting isn’t too bad. They were really trying on this one. I would say this is definitely worth a watch. It’s one of the better produced sharksploitation films from SyFy.

I just wish there were more sharks in this shark movie. I mean, they are there. They attack people. It seems like filler though, not the main plot. Even though it is the main plot. So the main plot needs to be main plottier.

Oh fuck it. At least they tried.

See ya next time!

Director: Mark Atkins

Where to watch: Amazon Prime