Dark Tide

John Stockwell – 2012 – USA

Actor turned director John Stockwell continues his sadly cynical formula of beautiful shots of beautiful people being thrown into the water.  I say it’s sad because these movies are such painfully clichéd potboilers.  With so much going for them in terms of production value, you’d think that a tad more of an effort on Stockwell’s part could add some slight depth or originality so that he wouldn’t have to keep suffering the embarrassment of critics saying that his films are no more than insubstantial fluff and eye candy.  He’s directed a lot of different kinds of movies, but I’m only interested in his surfing or boating related movies because there is so much opportunity for both adventure and great cinematography.  There was Blue Crush (2002), which was about girl surfers, and then there was Into the Blue (2005), which was about Paul Walker and Jessica Alba looking hot as they swam around looking for sunken treasure in the Bahamas.  This time around, in Dark Tide, the implausibly sexy couple is Halle Berry and Olivier Martinez.  She’s a tour boat pilot who once survived a shark attack.  Guess where her latest thrill-seeking customers will pay her a fortune to take them?  That’s right; straight into shark-infested waters!  These movies pain me because I’m such a sucker for anything about the ocean and diving and man-versus-nature tales.  It’s unfortunate that there are so few great movies set in the same milieu as Stockwell’s waterlogged trilogy; but it’s obvious that this is the case because filmmakers keep assuming that a few eye-popping visuals are enough to make a film good.  They’re not.