Under Paris Review

I brought up in my "Sting" review earlier this year that 1975's "Jaws" will likely forever be the defacto giant shark film, and Netflix's latest giant shark film "Under Paris" does nothing to change that. It is a great movie experience even if it's not a great movie, filled with dumb dialogue, idiotic characters, cliches and gore- all the good stuff.

Hey, even a classy critic like me can let loose every once in a while!

We follow Sophia (Bérénice Bejo), your standard cinematic "shark expert," who we first meet right before an incident where her husband and the rest of her team were mauled by Lilith, a tagged mako shark they were tracking. This scene immediately sets the tone for the film, as people float feet underwater next to a bloody baby sperm whale carcass as a shark swims mere meters away. I felt like yelling "get out of the water," but I don't speak French.

Not to suggest that Hollywood (France, as is the case here) at all represents true shark behavior, but even a dummy like me knows better then to enter a predator's territory, let alone one where the beast's leftovers sit.

Still shaken after several years, Sophia is approached by Mika (Léa Léviant), who's been following her work and knows where Lilith is. Spoiler alert, there's a shark in Paris. Well technically it's the Seine, but I suppose "Under Seine" didn't have quite the same ring to it.

Mika leads a sorta hippy environmentalist underground organization with her girlfriend Ben (Nagisa Morimoto), and due to a recent car accident in the Seine where they found the car but not the driver, the couple are planning to go visit Lilith later that night. While underwater, Mika find the car, it's driver's side door covered in teeth marks. Totally nothing the police should have noticed. Nothing suspicious. Nothing to see here.

In truth the cops are shown to be pretty dumb overall, who once a homeless man's half-body is pulled from the water, instinctively dismiss the local shark-expert's claim that it's, you know, a shark. But they've got nothing on the mayor (Anne Marivin), who's role is effectively the same as the mayor in "Jaws:" her only concern isn't the safety of the people but instead the upcoming triathlon

Every line she delivers sounds like a political ad, but her best moment is when after shaking peoples hands, she turns around to apply hand sanitizer- and then she whips her paws dry on a guy's suit! Good stuff.

Anyway, Sophia eventually teams up with cop Adil (Nassim Lyes), but Miko goes her own path, using social media to get help with an effort to safely move Lilith to the ocean from the flooded catacombs. Things, of course, do not go as planned, and it becomes an absolute bloodbath. Here in lies "Under Paris'" strength, showing the stupidity of man: not just of those in charge but people overall, where background characters get trampled as the crowd panics for safety, while others are knocked out and drown. 

This would be horrific had it been played seriously, which it isn't, but mostly had it not immediately succeeded an absolute gem of a scene, where we find out Lilith has a daughter. Miko's in the water, deciding to pet the baby like a doggie. Even a dummy like me knows that shark's skins are like razors! Oh but it gets better, this would-be professional doesn't seem to think that mommy would mind some strange creature being so close to its kid. Miko should really watch more monster flicks, it's obvious the filmmakers have.