"SHARK NIGHT 3-D" (2011)

"Shark Night 3-D" (* out of ****) bites!

Unfortunately, "Snakes on a Plane" director David R. Ellis plays everything straight in "Shark Night 3-D." Meaning, you had better prepare yourself for clichés galore without a smirk in sight. This derivative, PG-13 rated, 91-minute, yarn concerns three stereotypical, mean-spirited rednecks who drool at the chance to feed stuck-up college kids to ravenous sharks of all sizes. Of course, most of the ocean's deadly predators prefer to prowl the briny blue, but these three rednecks own a stunning device that enables them to paralyze these predators, attach mini-cams to them, relocate them to a Louisiana salt-lake, and wait for them to start chomping. Furthermore, they plan to make big bucks by selling their shark snuff videos to die-hard “Shark Week” addicts after the real thing. Think of "Shark Night 3-D" as "Jaws" trying to meet “8MM." Everybody sports serious expressions because everything is serious. Nevertheless, everybody behaves like idiots, too. A one-armed college jock with a spear wades into a shark-infested lake with revenge in his heart. Hammerheads, threshers, cookie cutters and bull sharks assemble to make munch-meat of him. Sadly, not only are these sharks either digitally concocted or animatronic, but they also act like SyFy Channel sharks. These synthetic sharks swim with such speed that our heroes, when the latter have either a boat with an outboard motor or water bike at their disposal, cannot out leave them in their wake!

An academically challenged Tulane University athlete, Malik (Sinqa Walls of “Choose Connor”), makes a B+ on a test and no longer fears flunking out of college. Malik rewards his dutiful tutor, Nick (Dustin Milligan of “Final Destination 3”), along with Nick’s nerdy roommate Gordon (Joel David Moore of “Avatar”) to join his friends for a good time at a remote lakeside estate. The wealthy parents of Sara (Sara Paxton of “Superhero Movie”) own a beautiful cottage secluded on an island which a sprawling salt-water lake surrounds. Naturally, nobody with a cell phone can raise a signal at Lake Crosby. Furthermore, the nearest hospital lies about two hours away. Little do our recreationally minded heroes know the ill-fate which awaits them. Meantime, Malik tries to play Cupid and get Nick and Sara together. As Malik tells Nick, Sara has not been on a date in three years. Later we learn why. Anyway, Nick and Sara grow chummy and Nick winds up steering Sara’s launch. While Nick is playing admiral, he has show-off Malik at the end of a tether skiing around the lake on a board. Malik impresses everything with his incredible gymnastic feats. He loves to perform flips. Suddenly, Malik feels something ram his board, and he takes a tumble. A shark attacks Malik and tears off his right arm at the bicep. Our heroes bandage Malik and rush him to the hospital. Malik’s blood drips into the lake and another shark slams into the launch so that Malik’s soon-to-be wife, Maya (Alyssa Diaz of TV’s “Southland”), topples into the water and gets gobbled up. Later, Malik storms into the lake with a spear and accomplishes nothing, except dying. The two river rednecks, Sara's ex-boyfriend, Dennis (Chris Carmack of “Into the Blue 2: The Reef), and his sidekick, Red (Joshua Leonard of “Hatchet”), offer to help Sara and her friends. Beth is so sickened by the tragic turn of events that she wants to ride with Dennis and Red back to the mainland. Gordon refuses to let Beth travel alone with them. Before it is all over with heroic Nick has to tangle with Sara’s ex-boyfriend and a shark.

Basically, "Shark Night 3-D" amounts to a complicated but predictable revenge thriller with nothing to recommend it either as top-notch entertainment or so bad it’s good. Freshmen scenarists Will Hayes and Jesse Studenberg neither do Ellis nor the audience any favors with their shallow screenplay that borrows extensively from other shark movies. Their dialogue is flat without any flair. The characters emerge as one-dimensional nitwits waiting for their moment to be eaten. Ellis deserves credit for keeping the action moving at a brisk pace. Nevertheless, he fails to generate any sympathy for our clueless heroes. The villains could be cousins of the rednecks in “Deliverance.” All of the ersatz shark attacks have been lensed before with greater realism in better movies. The 3-D delivers in only two scenes. The first involves an exploding boat flinging shrapnel, and the second shows a shark as its gory innards are blasted out of it. Considering the $28-million budget, you’d think they could have made more than one shark appear convincing. A bull shark does look supremely menacing in a scene straight out of the James Bond feature "License to Kill," but the rest look simulated and swim like torpedoes. Two sharks literally defy gravity by leaping out of the lake to chomp. A first girl caught alone in the lake is straight out of the original "Jaws" as well as the attack on a hapless skier is straight out of the "Jaws 2." If you want to watch a good shark thriller, and you cannot find "Jaws," then you might try "Deep Blue Sea" (1999), or the straight-to-video, outlandish "Shark Attack 3: Megalodon" (2002) and "Shark Swarm" (2008). The PG-13 rating rules out any chance of nudity, and the ability of sharks that can race through the water after speedboats eliminates any sense of credibility. Ellis generates a modicum of suspense when swimmers struggle to out-swim the sharks, but not enough to scare the daylights out of you.

"Shark Night 3-D" is munch-ado-about-gnaw-thing!

FILM REVIEW OF ''DRIVE ANGRY 3D" (2011)

Although the latest Nicolas Cage epic surpasses his previous potboiler “Season of the Witch,” “My Bloody Valentine” director Patrick Lussier’s “Drive Angry 3-D” (**1/2 out of ****) qualifies as little more than a campy, white-trash, B-movie about a gun-toting fugitive fresh out of Hell who struggles to save his infant granddaughter from a Satanic cult set on slaughtering her. Blood-splattered, babe-strewn, and bullet-riddled, this half-grilled collection of grindhouse clichés delivers non-stop action that you’ve seen before in better movies like “Race with the Devil," "Shoot’em Up,” “Crank,” and “Machete.” The only shred of originality in this hard-boiled, hare-brained hokum is a go-for-broke motel room massacre. A half-clad Cage in sunglasses, clutching a fifth of Jack Daniels in one fist and an automatic pistol in the other, mows down a mob of murderous miscreants as they migrate into his room without invitation. Just to show how incredibly cool that our hero is under fire, Lussier and co-scenarist Todd Farmer have his adversaries storm in on him in the middle of a tryst with a totally naked cocktail waitress astride him. Of course, the deafening gunfight traumatizes the poor dame. Meantime, our imperturbable protagonist misses nary a stroke until his pistol clicks on empty and the last thug stands poised to polish him off. This is as good as this beer & pizza movie gets. “Drive Angry” amounts to a second-rate, supernatural saga with cars flying through flaming hoops in “Dukes of Hazzard” fashion without a modicum of realism. Nevertheless, despite all its audacious abandon and above-average 3-D photography, this contrived, R-rated fantasy lacks a shred of genuine suspense. Since our hero is immortal, nothing the villains do can harm him. Sure, they kick him when he is down and put bullets into him, but Milton suffers no long term damage. In other words, we don't have to worry about his safety. As far as that goes, we don't have to worry about the safety of the child that rests in the arms of these vicious thugs. Hollywood would never sanction a film where a helpless child would get burned up. Entirely predictable as well as pedestrian from start to finish, this contrived road rage serves up drivel for dialogue and muscle car stunts that pale by comparison with the “Fast & Furious” franchise.

“Drive Angry” opens in Laughter, Colorado. Our enigmatic hero, John Milton (Nicolas Cage of “Face/Off”), has miraculously managed to escape from perdition. We're given a brief glimpse of Hell with its charred landscape, but none of the action takes place on those fried premises. Guess we'll have to await either for the prequel or the sequel to learn more about Milton's shenanigans in Hades. Meanwhile, we’re neither told how Milton broke out of Hell nor where he was imprisoned, except that he was confined in 'a dark place' that he didn't relish. When we see him for the first time, Milton is behind the wheel of a hot rod with an automatic shotgun. He runs down three repellent ruffians who work for wicked satanic cult leader Jonah King (Billy Burke of “Twilight”) so he can learn the whereabouts of his infant granddaughter. We're told that King murdered Milton’s daughter and son-in-law and King kept her femur as a trophy and turned it into a walking stick. King makes a relatively bland villain in the greater scheme of things when compared to such monsters as either Dr. Hannibal Lecter from "Silence of the Lambs" or Clarence J. Boddicker from "Robocop." He is leading his minions to a derelict prison in southern Louisiana to sacrifice the child during a bizarre full moon ritual. Chalk up points for Lussier and Farmer for giving the action a deadline. Just to show that he is serious about his aims; Milton blows one thug’s hand off with a blast from his shotgun. That scene looks good in 3-D. He shoots another thug in the leg and threatens to turn his thigh into ground chuck if he doesn’t talk. Naturally, the wounded man divulges King’s destination. Of course, no scene like this one would be complete without our hero igniting a stream of fuel leaking from the smashed up pick-up truck that the villains trundled around in and then walking away as the vehicle blows up in a fireball.

During the opening gunfight, our hero crashed his car and wound up afoot. He trudges no farther than a greasy spoon roadside diner where he spots a nubile waitress, Piper (Amber Heard of “Pineapple Express”), who has just quit her job. Piper's lecherous boss, Fat Lou (Jack McGee of "Basic Instinct") got fresh with her so she cleared out. Our heroine is cruising home to her out-of-work boyfriend when her sleek 1969 Dodge Charger overheats and coasts to a halt. As if on cue, Milton walks out of the woods, takes a gander under the hood, and then tweaks something. In no time flat, they are heading to see her sweetheart. Earlier, Piper had boasted to another waitress about how she had deprived her boyfriend of sex with her until he proposed marriage. It seems that he has been out of work and Piper has been paying the bills on the Charger. Imagine Piper’s surprise when she finds Frank (Todd Farmer of “Jason-X”) in bed with a dark-haired beauty. A bare-knuckles fistfight between Piper and Frank’s slut ensues and later Frank steps in and punches Piper out. He is about to carve her face up when Milton intervenes and decks Frank with several devastating blows. A grateful Piper agrees to drive Milton to Louisiana.

Along about this time, another mysterious individual makes his entrance. A well-tailored man in a suit and tie who calls himself 'the Accountant' (William Fichtner of “Heat”) is trailing Milton and plans to take him back to Satan. Milton and the Accountant engage in a game of cat and mouse throughout “Drive Angry.” Although they appear to be adversaries, the Accountant helps Milton out of some pretty tight predicaments, particularly a sheriff’s roadblock where an army of lawmen yearn for an excuse to blow our hero and heroine to smithereens. The Accountant likes to toss around a magic coin that can either change into the credentials of an FBI agent or a deadly weapon. Indeed, he hurls the coin at one bad guy and it sinks half-way into the brute’s forehead and kills him.

“Drive Angry” comes by its R-rating naturally. The f-word is uttered about 75 times in a variety of variations. When loose women aren’t displaying ample cleavage, they are parading around as naked as jaybirds without a qualm. The violence is somewhat extreme. At one point, we see the villainous Jonah brandish a straight razor and slash at a man’s throat. Although the blade is never shown penetrating flesh, the filmmakers show a geyser of blood splashing a nearby wall. Hands are obliterated. Heads are cut off. A baseball bat is used to skewer a man’s torso and the poor hooligan writhes in agony as he is pinned to a wall. The ultimate act of violence occurs when a heavy is disintegrated by a so called ‘god gun’ that deprives the individual of his soul so he can neither enter Heaven or Hell. Our triumphant hero drinks a cold beer from the dead man’s shattered cranium. Ghoulish as all this seems, Lussier and Farmer play everything for macabre laughs. Indeed, nothing in “Drive Angry” is remotely realistic. Unfortunately, virtually everything is so phony that it provides little in the way of catharsis. You know an action movie is in trouble when the demise of its chief villain yields no satisfaction. “Drive Angry” steps on the gas but winds up going nowhere in the long run.