As the movie opens, three pretty young women are floating in the water on a raft. One disappears, and the water turns red ...
Danielle wants to spend Spring Break in Florida. For one thing, she misses her friends Alicia and Karen, who went to a different college. Her strict lawyer father says no, but Danielle sneaks out anyway.
The beach is filled with good-looking young people. Danielle meets up with her friends, and J. T. and his friend Max have a video camera and want to pick up girls.
Danielle's brother Charlie, who is doing research for the local university, is concerned about the environmental effects of a new reef. His professor, after hearing him say sharks are likely to be a problem, reminds him of the boy who cried wolf. Nevertheless, Charlie tells his sister to stay out of the water.
Shane wants to go to college to study boat building. His mother isn't making enough from their boat rental business, though this is the busy season. Joel Gately, one of the customers, is having financial problems which would be solved if Spring Break wasn't quite so profitable here.
This would have been a perfectly good Spring Break movie without the sharks. Lots of gorgeous girls in bikinis (oh, almost forgot, there are guys with their shirts off). Wild parties with loud music. It's not always that exciting at first, but once the sharks really make their appearance, the excitement level builds. Again, it's not consistently exciting, but toward the end, I was glued to the screen.
Shannon Lucio was good as Danielle, who and showed a lot of intelligence in the process of helping save the day for her friends and, later, for everyone. Riley Smith was also good as Shane, who also really knew what he was doing.
Kathy Baker, as Shane's mother, did okay, but didn't really add that much for someone who is such a respected actress. Bryan Brown, as Mr. Gately, seemed to completely lack a conscience.
There was some great underwater photography (related to Charlie's research, not the sharks), though it didn't last long.
Consistency problem: the radio station started out as WZPP, then it was WZPZ, then WPZP. Makes you wonder what other problems there were.
Regardless, I thought this was pretty good.
