Dangerous Animals

Complete popcorn flick . This is not the Jaws of our generation but you’re about to have 1 1/2 hour of mindless fun.

Dangerous Animals was a breezy and entertaining movie. It was somewhat predictable, but I still found its runtime fly by in the theater. It has some really strong moments of intense tension. It'll also randomly suddenly have a beautiful shot, showing some cinematography chops, though I think some of this is frontloaded. I was hoping there would be more of that camerawork throughout, but it was still nice when it occured. Hassie Harrison plays a Jennifer Lawrence-lite style character, but she does a good job. Jai Courtney is hammy enough, but he lacked some of the screen presence required for the role. I think the movie's weakness is that it tries to develop a random and unnecessary romance subplot that eats up runtime. Cutting that would have made the movie leaner and more intense. I think the movie isn't slow necessarily, and it does have a unique premise compared to similar shark features that gives it more weight. I just think some tighter editing could have pushed it up a level.

Watched Dangerous Animals with Tim at Harkins Chandler. It was eh. Characters didn’t really get developed. I liked the main actor, Jai Courtney. There was one or two really cool looking shark shots. Not enough shark kills. Didn’t thrill enough as a capture movie. The last shark attack scene was all cgi and kinda rough. Pretty weird and felt dumb for the girl to get pulled out by the harpoon gun at the end. Connor 5?, normal 5.

Is it a little reductive to call this coastal Wolf Creek? Maybe. Is it wrong? No. Similar themes of xenophobia and the terrifying, unknown frontier. The isolation of being in the wilderness with someone who knows it and no one else around. And Jai Courtney, while quite entertaining, is very much in the same mode Jarrat’s Mick Taylor without as much commentary. This replaces the grimy torture and atmosphere with sharks and romance. And it has a lot of respect and affection for sharks, shooting them beautifully and framing them as exploited and corrupted by but ultimately above their serial killer fan. And the two protagonists are endearing and charming enough together. It makes for a good time, but it won’t redefine either sharks or Australian horror.