Every once in a while, a movie comes around that changes the face of cinema.  The Jazz Singer, Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind, Silent of the Lambs and Star Wars.  Before that, we’re defining works of literature and storytelling that must be read or heard: Macbeth, The Odyssey, Of Mice and Men, and A Tale of Two Cities. However, modern visionary David R. Ellis, who has had hands in such classics as Scarface, Fatal Attraction and Lethal Weapon, surpasses, nay, smashes and overwhelms all of these works with an opus that has been known to make mere mortals cry due to its divine beauty.  Move over Hamlet, Shark Night 3D will henceforth be known as the greatest work of the English language.
What some may view as a god awful abomination of a movie, I see it as perhaps the cleverest satire of the modern world. Some buffoons ask ‘why are there an absurd number of sharks in a small lake in Louisiana?’ first: the movie answers this question very well (it is a saltwater lake), secondly, this begins the genius of the film. The sharks, in fact, represent our mind’s direction, and we think of them in a traditional place (the ocean). This miraculous movie asks us to take our thoughts and put them in an unexpected, yet believable, area to inspire spurts of brilliance and extreme emotion.  Another commonly raised question ‘how can sharks out swim speed boats?’ As before, the sharks represent our thoughts. The speedboat represents a safe and boring life that we could live. Ellis asks us to let our thoughts catch up to this traditional lifestyle, and turn it on its head, and pursue our dreams and excellence.
Some may call the acting ‘bland’ ‘generic’ and some may even say ‘DEAR GOD MAKE IT STOP’. But just when you think Ellis has been pushed up against the ropes by making a poor decision, he rope-a-dopes us and connects with an uppercut of artistic genius. Yet if the actors were to steal the show with stupendous acting, you would not be able to see the subtle brilliance of the narrative and most likely would not recognize the allegories and metaphors for our current society. However, when actors deliver such brilliant lines such as “Nooooo” and “Stop eye-fondling that and start the boat” the actors shed their façade and nearly make you faint from the almost-inhumane brilliance of this film.
The special effects seem like they could be re-created with MS Paint and Windows Movie Maker, and this is Ellis just being cruel. He does it as if to say “I used the same tools you could use, but you could never make a work as jaw dropping as this in five lifetimes”. He is a genius, but a cruel one.
The more I talk about this film, the more I want to go watch it again. The fact that I’m not viewing this masterpiece again is tearing me apart. So I’ll end on this note: “Shark Night 3D is to America what The Aeneid is to Ancient Rome. It perfectly combines, imagery, poetic flow, piety and moral dilemmas to create a work that defined an Empire.” – Barrack Obama