While the first Shark Attack wasn’t exactly a prestigious production, at least it was deemed worthy to be released as a TV movie.
With the “sequel” they didn’t even bother to try and sell it to SYFY, and released it directly to home video, which is already a flag of sorts, but then again, the first one was quite bad and widely panned, so nobody was expecting Shark Attack 2 to carry the sins of the father and redeem the franchise on the Golgotha.
And when i say sequel, i mean the mutant sharks are supposed to be the same from the last movie (and yes, the movie actually makes that connection by naming Dr. Craven), and then escaped whilst being transported to an acquarium, which results in them attacking Cape Town. The rest of the plot it basically a rip-off of Jaws 3/3D, with a Sea World knock-off, a diver and scientist seeking vengeance upon the sharks, and an Australian shark hunter working for Discovery Channel that plans to profit off the sharks. BUT it also has the “mayor being an asshole” sub-plot, just for the hell of it.
I’d say “pick ONE of the Jaws movie to rip-off”, but this is the magic of sharkploitation.
And yes, aside from the sharks (and being a Nu Image production), this shares nothing with the previous movie. The cast is completely different, the characters are completely different, even the director is different, with David Worth at the helm, best known before for being the cinematographer of Bloodsport, doing camera and eletrical work on Innerspace, co-directing Kickboxer, and also directing (and writing) Warriors Of The Lost World. That’s certainly quite the resumè.
I must say, this is a lil’ better than the first movie, at least this one tries, and it helps when the director at least knows how to keep people awake (and not just dares them to wait for 50 minutes until the movie finally remembers to make things happen), production values are actually an improvement, since they have props and use them (without wasting all budget on shark autopsies) when they can, without having to continuosly edit around obvious stock footage of sharks taken from documentaries….not in the massive way the first Shark Attack had to, anyway.
Sure, the shark props are plasticy, with ridiculous bulging eyes, their “roars” sound more like belches, but even they’re done in digital, the CG sharks don’t look worst than most digital shark crapfests of the 2010’s.
There isn’t much to say, it’s the same old crap, the characters are all stock stereotypes, both the good guys and the bad guys, heck, you can just tell the Australian shark hunter has arrived because of the fuckin hat, it’s that level of stereotypes. But oddly enough, the script tries to make all characters somewhat believable, even some that seem pretty much destined to be future shark chow because they act like douchebags, and the main protagonists are alright, they’re functional, not that bright but also not total pillocks.
There is an effort to not make them one-note caricatures, for what it’s worth, and the acting (by a cast of tv actors that will probably ring zero bells) is also alright for this type of movie, all considered, despite the token romance between male protagonist and female protagonist and some other minutes of fluff you could have cut out.
Shark Attack 2 isn’t a good movie, it just isn’t, but despite going direct-to-video, this sequel it’s actually better than the first one in pretty much every way, a kind of “better” that still doesn’t manages to reach even full mediocrity, but amounts to a movie that fulfill the “so bad it’s good” criteria, it’s just bad, lazy, derivative… but fairly watchable regardless, maybe it’s because i’ve already seen dozens of way worse shark movies.
This is just another one for the pile, one that you will immediatly forgot after watching, but in this case it’s a plus, and while watching you probably won’t become dumber, or angrier. Watch it, don’t watch it, doesn’t matter, Shark Attack 3 Megalodon would become reality (and internet legend) regardless!
Wise Cafe (International) 