El Arrecife: Atrapadas

Let's start off by saying that I loved the reef and I was looking forward to this one as soon as they announced it but after watching it, it was horrible. How can they do the first one so good graphics wise but in this one they tried using cheap cgi. They should have stuck with how they done the first one because it was phenomenal.

The Reef is one of my favourite shark movies. Traucki's first shark movie was harrowing, tense and frightening, succeeding to satisfy at every twist and turn. Unfortunately this sequel fails to live up to it on every level. The acting is a mixed bag, ranging from passable to laughable. The use of real shark footage is commendable but not as seamlessly well integrated as its predecessor. The music is unimaginative and repetitive. The characters are annoying. The shark acts like a monster from a Kaiju movie, rather than a shark. I should have known what to expect from the poster art.

This being said, there are positives to the movie. The first 40 minutes was well done and there were some scenes that showed glimpses of the tension of the first movie.

Worth a watch for the die hard shark-movie fan, but if you didn't enjoy the first one, or any other shark flicks, definitely skip this one.

'The Reef: Stalked' is mostly a misfire, but it's certainly better than other recent shark movies such as 'Great White', which was truly awful.

I will continue to follow Traucki's work, as a fan of his previous movies, hoping we see quality closer to that of the first movie again in the future.

Sisters Cath and Nic with friends Jodie and Lisa have fun kayaking in the ocean. Nic is murdered by her partner and Cath is traumatized. Jodie and Lisa try to bring her back to life with another tropical vacation. They brought along younger sister Annie. The girls and local children get attacked by a great white shark.

It's another shark movie. The ladies are beautiful. There is some trauma before the shark. There is the shark. As often the case, the shark looks fine in the water, but can look bad when it comes out of the water. Worst still, it doesn't act real. Apparently, it's a battering ram and a stalker. It's the hallmark of a B-shark movie. As for the ladies, there are moments of poor judgement. It's the little things that they don't always do. It would also be reasonable to have one of the local woman join them. All in all, it's a below average shark movie.

I'm not a writer nor am I a movie critic, but I do watch helluva a lot more movies, so I'm just going to share how this movie made me feel.

I've never kayaked before, and without having any actual kayaking experience, I would've been a seasoned pro next to the skill set the women in this movie were portrayed as having! I was shocked at how utterly incompetent the characters in this film were made out to be. I found myself yelling things like drop the damned bloody fish, and wtf, turn kayak back over throughout the entire movie! The sheer lack of common sense and any realistic response to the danger of being hunted by a great white shark killed this film for me (no pun intended)! If the women in this film were actual people, they'd have no business being in a kayak, let alone kayaking long stretches of open ocean. Yes, this is just a movie-a movie on how to broadcast loudly to all the sharks in a given area, hey come eat us, we're all an easy meal! Geez!

A group of friends go into the water, and encounter a white shark.

Not the most original plot it's fair to say, however there are a couple of shark movies that make the grade, because they offer something original, something a little different, sadly this is not one of them, it is instantly forgettable, with nothing of any particular note happening. It's another of those movies that does nothing to promote the wonder of sharks, just plays into an outdated idea of them being man eating monsters from The Sea.

There are a few moments of suspense, I'll give it that, a couple of scenes where you don't quite know what's going to happen, or where the shark is, so I'll applaud them for that, I'll also say I quite liked the music in parts too, it wasn't overdone.

The major problems though, first off, the acting, it wasn't particularly good, and secondly the shark itself, I'm not a shark expert by any means, but this one, was behaving in a very strange way, I'm not sure they behave in such a way, I could be wrong.

It's not often you watch a film like this and root for the shark, however on this occasion, I did.

4/10.