While perusing through Hulu I came across this shark adventure movie called ‘No Way Up’. It was a sunny day here in Fredonia so I was in the mood to watch a summer kind of movie.
The plot centers around a group of passengers on a plane. They are traveling across the pacific ocean when disaster hits. The plane goes down into the ocean and they are submerged only kept alive by an airlock. The surviving passengers must fight to escape the destroyed plane and make it to survive before their air runs out. All the while a group of sharks are waiting for their next meal.
It was honestly a fun and stupid premise. Shark movies have become such a joke. Jaws set the scene for shark films and has one of the best depictions of a scary man eating shark. Now in 2025 we have sharknado, ghost shark, and a whole pethera of other bad CGI shark films. This movie is just slightly above those bad ones.
The cinematography is actually done quite well in this movie, the underwater scenes looked good and clear, and the plane explosion also looked pretty good.
Where this film suffers is in the performances. The characters are just so cliché and overly dramatic. This is a cheesy disaster/action movie. I don’t need to know the trauma each character has in depth. There is also a little girl in this movie who is so irritating. She has such cringy and hard to watch dialogue and by the end I was hoping a shark would get her.
That is not to say I didn’t enjoy myself watching this movie. I was locked-in the whole time. It kept my attention quite well and I was guessing what was gonna happen next. The shark effects and kills also weren’t too bad.
Another thing I liked about this film was the interesting premise. Having our characters in one small location for most of the film could get boring really fast. The movie does a great job of keeping everything interesting and keeping the audience on their toes.
However one glaring issue of this film is all of the logistical nonsense, such as the airlock and the sharks coming into the plane. I get it is supposed to be fun and entertaining, but at least make it make sense. For instance there is a rescue mission side plot and the whole movie the pilots are being useless and clueless. If this situation were real they would have the coordinates of the crash and have a special water helicopter with experienced scuba divers. But instead we are treated to nitwits who talk about diner food most of the time.
All in all though this is a good film to watch with your buddies and make fun of. I don’t think that was the intention of this film but that’s what it is. It is a good way to kill an hour and a half and give you a sense of summertime.
I give this film ★★☆☆☆ / ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
(you can watch it on Hulu)
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