The Devils Mouth
I love a good shark movie.
I'll usually swim out of my way to enjoy even a mildly enjoyable shark thriller.
THE DEVIL'S MOUTH is absolute chum that bores, stinks and generates unintentional laughs in its ineptitude.
So, where do I dive into this one?
After opening with some beautiful shots of Thailand that made me really want to visit these beaches, we meet a group of early 20-somethings who are so self centered, obnoxious and dull that I couldn't wait to see who was going to get chomped on first.
The lone exception is Sara, played by Kathryn Newton (Ready of Not 2, Big Little Lies) who I hope got a big paycheck for appearing in this dreck. By portraying character traits like humility, caution and basic self awareness, Newton's Sara emerges as the one person in the entire film you cheer for...for awhile anyway.
Oh, there is the group's tour guide Wat (Tayme Thapthimthong) who almost immediately sees this bunch of airhead idiots for what they were and wishes he'd stayed home and enjoyed the beach. I cheered for him too, knowing no matter what they paid him, it wasn't enough.
Max (Lana Condor) is Sara's best friend. She's the one in the group that always wants to push the limits. Why do the stunning diving caves that the tour guide with years of experience suggests, when you can do the red flagged/diamond run/super dangerous path that the tour guide tells you a dozen times not to?
Condor is saddled with an obnoxious character who starts the film off by basically betraying her friend, not only with life choices, but then forgets that Sara is swimming in the water after five minutes and tells the boat captain to head out, stranding Sara in a school of jellyfish.
At least Max gives you someone to root against.
The rest of the young people are more abs than brains and one of the dudes keeps talking about missing his Mommy. WTF?
Soon, surprising only the addle-brained in the viewing audience, the group discovers that a recent giant storm has introduced not only salt water into the caves, but some giant sharks into the network of caves.
I watched this thing and the CGI was so bad and the photography so dark that I honestly can't tell you if there were multiple sharks or just one really big one. I THINK its supposed to be just one giant bull shark. As in "Jaws:The Revenge" the shark is so poorly rendered that it seems to be HUGE one moment and able to fit through very tight spaces the next.
It's lazy, stupid filmmaking from the moment they enter the caves.
Let's check the B-movie making boxes shall we?
Will Sara, the only one with common sense and a sense of fear, RISE ABOVE?
Will Max eventually have to face the consequences of her lame-brained choices?
Will one hero emerge who seemed the least likely to survive?
Compound the absurd predictability with some really stupid, stupid choices by these characters on the water-logged path and you get some serious groans along the way.
At one point, Sara is trying to get the shark's attention, so she goes all Jeff Goldblum in "Jurassic Park" and starts waving a red flare shouting, "Over here!"
Insert groan here.
Bad movies can be a lot of fun, especially if they have a sense of humor.
OOPS, no humor detected.
I cheered for the shark to eat them all as quickly as possible, begging for a feeding frenzy to put this poorly shot, way too dark, slop CGI, half-assed effort to an end.
Alas, the idiocy goes on for almost two hours.
THE DEVILS MOUTH has no bite and gets an F.
Wow! You had to dig deep to write anything (including puns) about this one. I've say through many an awful movie hoping it had to get better (while Elizabeth dozed off 15 minutes in, only to find my hopes dashed. Fantastic review!