Black Water: Abyss Review

"Black Water: Abyss" is a peculiar name for this movie, which is ultimately just another man-eating crocodile flick. There are plenty of shots of the water, but it's never black- brown would be more accurate, murky would be even better (it even turns red in a few moments, but I digress). What does this have to do with the movie? Nothing, but I couldn't get over it. Why, I'm not sure. Perhaps I felt mislead, but then again, maybe questions like this shouldn't be asked when the narrative follows the exploits of a very hungry crocodile.

The "crocodile movie" subgenre is a finicky one, packed with entries but none with the impact "Jaws" had for shark movies. But "Black Water: Abyss" is no masterpiece like "Jaws." It's not the surprisingly decent "Jaws 2." It's not the "so-bad-it's-good" Jaws 3-D and it certainly is not the "so-bad-it's-great" "Jaws: The Revenge." It occupies somewhere aside that franchise, repackaging its ideas and slapping them onto concepts from other places, namely "The Descent," which itself was a repurposing of themes from other films.

This results in something that isn't very bad but isn't very good either. Then again, there is no standard for crocodile movies, unless you count "Lake Placid," but that's remembered only for its idiosyncratic humor and Betty White. I found myself wishing for humor here, any kind of humor. The dialogue here consists of emotional baggage and the obligatory "get out of the water" kind of screams.

The cast is kept small fortunately, as two couples and a makeshift guide go spelunking in an unknown cave. The closest thing we get to a main character is Jen, played by Jessica McNamee, who in her first scene is snooping on her boyfriend Eric's phone (played by Luke Mitchell). This sets her up to be either jealous or instinctive, which plays into the drama once everyone lands in the cave; an undercurrent of suspect and deception with everyone involved. Problem is, we've seen this all done before, and done with more wit and carnage in Neil Marshall's aforementioned cult hit.

The human turmoil, as familiar as it is, comes close to the cusp of working, but it shortchanges you without any commitment. There is no resolution to the late revelation, people die and other don't. Even the false-ending doesn't offer any satisfying conclusion. But, who are we kidding? No one rents a movie (or goes to the theater, if your country is so lucky) like this and expects to be invested in anyone who's not a semiaquatic monster.

Much of the film is spent in a large cavern, which suddenly floods and caves in (like all movie caves do) and introduces the main star, Mr. Crocodile. We don't get very many clear shots, only brief flashes of his teeth and head poking up from the water. I'm guessing its low budget keeps the special-effect shots down to a minimum, so we're left with the suggestion of the crocodile beneath the still water. This is more of a detriment than a benefit, as the small amount of suspense developed from what you don't see is ruined by the cartoony CGI shots that you do see. What a waste of the computers who generated this imagery. We came here for cheap thrills and bloody kills, but "Black Water: Abyss" is just cheap, without many thrills, blood, or kills.