Following in the wake of the popular "Jaws" movies, there have been a recent wave of these shark survival/lost at sea movies around. And "The Reef" is actually one of the better movies in the genre.
The story is pretty easy to follow, a yacht gets capsized and starts to sink, and a group of people decide to swim for an island. Well, given the choice of being left on a sinking boat caught in the currents or taking your chances and swimming to land, well the choice is fairly obvious.
Anyway, what makes this movie stand out from others like "Adrift" and "Open Water" is that there is much more shark time, and you actually get to see the shark in good views. And also, somehow you start to, in an odd way, cheer on when you see the shark, because the movie is constantly building up suspense and thrills, and you just want these to peak. And there are some nice peaks to these thrills, trust me. I am not going to ruin anything and say what it is, but I liked it.
I think the movie captured human nature when caught in a hopeless situation and when people start having to respond to the chaos around them. The dialogue was good and the actors portrayed their characters very good and in very believable manners.
However, what puzzles me was that it would be the same shark that is stalking the people throughout the movie. That seems very weird. And also, like someone else pointed out, what was up with the constant taking off and putting on the goggles that Luke was doing? That made no sense at all.
But all in all, "The Reef" is definitely worth your time, especially if you like shark movies, or movies that tear on the human psyche.
