Empire of the Sharks

Right from the start this starts off bad - despite being set in the ocean (sort of Waterworld meets Mad Max) it was obviously filmed on a beach, probably the same set used for the equally atrocious Planet of the Sharks. With the exception of Ashley de Lange, who plays a Carrie-like shark caller, all of the cast, along with the script writer, deserve to be thrown in the ocean & fed to the sharks. The bad acting is painful to watch. Poor CGI. And sharks do not growl!!! Very bad film.

There are some TV movies that are good, there are some that are bad. Some are that bad they are good, and some are that good they shock and amaze. 2017's "Empire of the Sharks" is an amazing masterclass of moviemaking that delights and entertains... Hang on, I've been smoking crack again. I meant to say that this is a steaming pile of crapola.

Brief Plot: In a dystopian future where the Earth is underwater a bad guy is about to meet his match.

Detailed Plot: Ian Fien is a nasty SOB that controls a small floating island as a dangerous and menacing warlord. With the majority of the world submerged under water due to events of the past, in this future version of Earth resources are sparce. With his army of trained sharks Fien and his men capture Willow, a mysterious stranger that happens to be the daughter of a "shark caller". She might just be the only person that can inspire a rebellion to overthrow the evil warlords dominion and lead whats left of humanity into a safer future.

Film stuff: EOTS is written and Directed by Mark Atkin, who has plenty of TV Movie titles under his belt, including; "6-Headed Shark Attack" (2018), "Planet of the Sharks" (2016), and "Sand Sharks" (2012). Just to be clear - I've only named the shark based films Atkin's has directed recently, but in fact he has at least 25 titles under his best as director and almost as many as writer. Atkins also worked on the camera and did the editing (along with Marq Morrison. He didn't work on the music, this is by Heather Schmidt, but I'll be honest, when you are watching this film you won't pay attention to the music with how bad the film is. CGI... CGI? Let's just skip that because it looks like everyone else skipped it too. With a runtime that's around 85 minutes, this bad film will feel like it's dragging, even with a 15 rating to spice things up a little.

Cast: John Savage plays Ian Fien, Jack Tompkins is Timor, Ashley De Lange is Willow, Jonathan Pienaar is Mason Scrim.... I could keep going, but to be honest, nobody really stands out in the film. Even those amongst the acting cast who don't give a cheesy performance are hampered by the plot that's been done and recycled many times before and the lacklustre script which could have been written as a colege project by 16 year olds. How did John Savage, who was once in "The Deerhunter" (1978) find himself in this, it must have been some downward spiral for his career.

Wrap up: This super low budget creature feature film is a straight to TV movie which is produced by The Asylum - which explains an awful lot. It's actually a sort-of sequel to "Planet of the Sharks" (2016) which I generously gave 2 out of 10 when I previously reviewed that title, so you can imagine how much I was looking forward to this film - hint, I wasn't. Shark films have been done to death and this film really doesn't do itself any justice. In an attempt to combine "Jaws" (1975), "Waterworld" (1995) and "Mad Max" (1979), "Empire of the Sharks" instead pulls its own trousers down and curls out a massive steaming turd on-screen for those unlucky enough to catch it on TV. If the first film was abysmal - this is worse than dire. Instead of wasting money making trash like this, think of the good that could have been done if the production crew had of just donated money to charity or a worthwhile cause instead. Sorry - 1 out of 10. Not even that bad that it's good for a laugh.

This movie has 1 good shot, everything else is just bad enough that it goes beyond funny bad, just straight back to bad.

Waste of £6, but good if you want to Chuck something terrible on in the background whilst you do something.

John Savage. He was in Godfather III, Do The Right Thing, The Deer Hunter.

In Empire of the Sharks he plays a warlord in a post apocalyptic water based society who has a mechanism to control man eating sharks.

Along with his cohorts they terrorise other colonies for tributes. However they come across a young woman who also has the ability to control sharks without needing any fancy gloves.

This Asylum production made for SyFy is dismal. It is Waterworld meets Jaws without any campy fun.

The special effects are of a typical low standard. The film is so dull, its running length is stretched because there is not enough story. The acting by most of the cast is bland.

This movie tries to combine Mad Max with Jaws and the end product is about what you expect when you see "shark" in a movie title these days. The only thing I liked was the setting, the various boats and mixes of technology made for an interesting setting. Everything else was absolutely awful. The acting was bad, even for a made for TV movie. The writing relied heavily on long over done clichés and tropes and the plot was rather uninteresting. As with all of the latest crop of this kind of film the sound design is overdone and distracting, potentially to make up for the awful writing. It makes the cheesy action scenes even harder to sit through. Overused bargain bin CG adds to the unbearable cringe that describes most of this movie. The main villain is beyond comical, the actor's performance combined with the writing makes his appearances on screen almost comical, but still somewhat painful.

In short, this movie is bad, not "so bad its good" but "Why did I waste 90 minutes of my life on this" bad.