Even the sharks look bored in generic "Great White"

Great White (2021)

From 2016’s “The Shallows” to 2017’s “47 Meters Down” to 2018’s “The Meg” and then 2019’s “47 Meters Down: Uncaged,” the annual Killer Shark Movie™ has gladly become a summer genre unto itself. This year (and right around Shark Week, no less), it’s “Great White,” which proves that a good Killer Shark Movie doesn’t necessarily need profound character arcs but still needs tension, scares, or thrills. Unfortunately, Australian director Martin Wilson is unable to stir up much of anything in his feature debut. It needed to be ruthless and relentless, or just fun, but “Great White” is easily one of the dullest and least effective shark thrillers seen in a long time. 

Newly pregnant triage nurse Kaz (Katrina Bowden) and her ripped pilot/marine biologist boyfriend Charlie (Aaron Jakubenko) try making a flailing business out of seaplane tourism. Just when Charlie needs a new client, their plane gets chartered by a married couple, Michelle (Kimie Tsukakoshi) and tightly wound investment banker Joji (Tim Kano). The group is joined by Charlie's Pacific Islander friend, chef Benny (Te Kohe Tuhaka), and off they go to find a secluded beach for Michelle to spread the ashes of her grandfather. When the fivesome stumbles upon the corpse of a man seemingly attacked by a shark, they try investigating and are then left stranded in an inflatable life raft. Will they survive, or will they become chum?

Following a mildly tense opening with an initially happy couple frantically swimming to their yacht as the shadow of a shark swims for them, “Great White” takes a while to become eventful again after so much paddling. The script by Michael Boughen does at least attempt a little characterization and human drama with these five people. There’s the McConaughey-type pilot haunted by a shark attack with a leg wound to prove it, but the rich, possessive jerk who’s afraid of the water can't get swallowed fast enough. Though the performances are passable, there’s just not enough rooting interest in who lives and who dies; it’s also easy to reason that Katrina Bowden’s Kaz will probably be the last one standing because she’s pretty, pregnant, and played by the most familiar face. Someone will slip into the water from the raft to grab their runaway paddle as a fin slowly surfaces, or one of the sharks will tip over the raft to empty its proverbial food bowl, but the “what would you do?” of it all only goes so far. The final confrontation between our survivor and the great white even feels like a far less exciting variation on the one with bikini-clad Blake Lively and her finned co-star in "The Shallows."

“Jaws” shouldn’t even be brought up in the same paragraph as “Great White,” but it’s not “Open Water,” either, or even “The Reef.” Hell, it’s not even "Jaws 2," “Shark Night 3D,” or “Deep Blue Sea 3.” Ultimately, this feels more like one of those disposable direct-to-video releases from the early 2000s with more proficient cinematography and stock underwater footage blended with weak, often SyFy-level effects for the great whites. It’d be forgivable if it were even ridiculous, but “Great White” tries to be a respectable survival thriller, and it’s just boring. Don’t come in, the water is quite tepid. Even the sharks look bored.

Grade: C -

RLJE Films and Shudder are releasing “Great White” (91 min.) in theaters, on demand, and digital on July 16, 2021.