Chum review – daft shark attack movie with wedding guests running gamut of toothy undersea beast
Producer-star Alice Eve seems to be laughing along with the audience in this deeply silly high-concept thriller To be as clear as the crystalline waters
Producer-star Alice Eve seems to be laughing along with the audience in this deeply silly high-concept thriller To be as clear as the crystalline waters in which the characters here frolic before their blood turns the ocean the colour of sangria: this is grade A tosh. It’s a deeply stupid high-concept feature wherein a bunch of bourgie wedding guests run afoul of an errant great white shark.
The twist is (and it’s really not much of a surprise) that the true enemy is not really the shark, which is only following its sharky instincts. No, the bad guy is a bereaved weirdo called Roy (Jim Klock), who wants revenge on the shark for eating his wife in the opening pre-credits sequence. Alice Eve, who is also one of the film’s producers, at least seems to be having a bit of a giggle playing Tina, the most resourceful of Roy’s victims.
Tina is a lawyer who should be enjoying the first days of her marriage to Tom (Eric Michael Cole) after their lavish destination wedding – except it looks like they are heading for a swift annulment, because ecowarrior Tom is disgusted with Tina for considering taking on an oil company as a client. They can’t make peace on the topic, and in the middle of an endless bicker they are press-ganged into what is supposed to be a relaxing three-hour cruise with a bunch of disposable secondary characters.
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