Tasked with a last-ditch mission, a banker follows a group of high-end passengers onto a cruise in the area to meet her target, but when they meet a stranded sailor and are forced to stay on a deserted island find it inhabited with a massive snake that they have to stop to get off the island alive.
This was a serviceable at best genre effort. Among its better features is the engaging setup that manages to introduce some intriguing elements into its story. The idea of the mission to bag her target as a last-ditch chance to keep her job which brings about following the crew onto the ship gets everyone involved in the story rather nicely, especially once the ulterior motives of the captain get revealed with the diamond-smuggling taking place which is not her initial target with the model cruise being the main point in the first place. With the group arriving on the remote island after the shady dealings going on and how everything there comes about, this setup becomes a workable enough starting point accomplishing its mission quite well. There's also the solid series of creature attacks here which are somewhat fun enough. The early scenes on the island with the creature stalking them through it's point-of-view shots as they stumble upon the series of pitfalls and traps present has a fine air to it with the unknown location and stalker attitude of the creature, which lets the open attacks here at the spike-trap or appearing in the middle of a stand-off where the group tries to determine who has the upper hand. The creative finale makes for a fun time as well with the impressive tactic attempting to capture it that's quite ingenious and far more action-packed than something like this would be expected to have. These all manage to provide enough to like here although there are some issues here that bring this one down. The main issue here is the exceptionally unlikable main group here who make this one quite difficult to follow and care about when the snake isn't involved. Shady jewel-smugglers, brutal thugs who resort to violence against the others to get their way, sleazy social media influencers more concerned with taking pictures of everything, and a goody-two-shoes main girl that wilts away at the slightest hint of danger don't make for a fun time while on the cruise-ship before they arrive at the island. Even still, the constant arguing and grand-standing about being the one to lead the others to safety once they arrive make for a tough time getting into the film overall. That highlights the other drawback in that the snake is reserved until such a late stage that even these aren't enough to lift the pace along. It's not until the half-way point that the snake even makes something resembling an appearance with the group fighting and arguing their way through the jungle constituting the majority of the running time until then so there's not much in the way of creature action. It being half-over until the snake starts picking off the group is far too long to be here waiting until it gets going with these scenes as that means the group figuring out rescue options or discussing how they got this way which is all fine enough but just keeps this one from unleashing the snake the way it really should and holding this one down the most.
Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Language.
