Directed By: John Stockwell

Starring: Halle Berry, Olivier Martinez, Ralph Brown

One year after her dopy mates were munched by a pissed off great white, a debt-ridden diving tutor agrees to take a rich businessman and his unwell-looking son out into the water in this dreary nautical thriller.

Dark Tide (or Darktide?) stars Halle Berry as Kate Something-Or-Another, a shark expert with a tragic past who is coaxed against her better judgement into confronting her aquatic demons. Berry is supposed to be the lead hero of the film, but to be honest you could probably replace her with a slightly water damaged shop mannequin and achieve the same result. She is wooden and uncharismatic, lacks any gravitas, and is overshadowed by a far superior supporting cast.

The french boyfriend (let’s call him Pierre because I can’t remember the characters’ actual name) is charming and cocky. He is effortlessly cool and interesting, even though it’s obvious that the only dive he is interested in is straight into Halle Berry’s pants. The british deckhand, whom we shall call George III, (yes I know I could google it) is funny and endearing and lightens the early scenes with a few sharp one-liners. The rich businessman, played with a slightly angry but ultimately likeable arrogance by British actor Ralph Brown, is a father desperately trying to find something in common with his weedy and anoemic-looking son.

The underwater scenes are quite impressive, and it’s pretty hard to tell when they make the switch from a real shark to a CGI one. It’s all a bit dark and muddled down there, which makes it rather difficult to see who’s guts are getting chewed on, but other than that the cinematography is quite good.

The pacing, on the other hand, is an issue. Nothing really happens between the first course and the second, and there’s a clear hour of character work in between. It establishes who these people are and why it matters when they get eaten, but without any tension to spice it up it’s something of a slog to get through.

Halle Berry decides to call the businessman’s bluff after he puts them at risk, stubbornly taking him to the place where the biggest, crankiest, smelliest, most gangster sharks live. She tells him if he sees a shark to “hit it in the snout”, which incidentally is exactly the same way I feel about James Corden. Predictably, everything goes tits northwards. The boat basically falls to pieces and gets flipped over by a massive wave, tipping the whole buffet into the water. Being at the mercy of the sea’s foremost biting experts seldom ends happily, anda small amount of carnage ensues.

Unfortunately. this is literally one hour and forty minutes into the movie, and it’s far too dark to see what’s going on.  Tonally, the final fifteen minutes do not match the rest, and it becomes an absolute mystery as to who is being eaten and who isn’t.

However, there is a really awesome bit where a shark swims up to one of the characters  and eats his leg and he barely reacts at all, so I suppose in hindsight this is a 10 out of 10 movie.