Bad Movie Review: Shark in Venice (2008)
Starring:
Stephen Baldwin
Vanessa Johansson
Hilda van der Meulen
Dir: Danny Lerner
What do you get when you film a shark movie in Bulgaria, set it in Venice, include the Mafia, historical innacuracies and a Baldwin brother? Why, it’s Nu Image’s “Shark in Venice” of course!
Before “Shark in Venice”, Nu Image are the studio that brought us the seminally bad “Shark Attack 3“. Many fans of the series see “Shark in Venice” as the fourth “Shark Attack” movie. Despite the only common ground between these movies apparently being sharks and not cast or stories, they’re definitely in the same league when it comes to bad movies.
The big star of this movie is Stephen “I’m a celebrity, no really, I am” Baldwin. Only one week ago, he filed for bankruptcy. I’m sure that in his mind, this movie was going to provide him with a meal ticket for the rest of his life. And with his hammy acting, who can blame him? He’s thoroughly entertaining throughout the entire picture, but that’s more because of his nonsensical whispering and ridiculous facials than anything good.
This is a movie about sharks. In Venice. But it’s also about hidden medieval treasure. It’s a historical movie then. Except there seems to have been no research into anything historical whatsoever before writing the script.
The whole movie’s plot is driven by the search for treasure that was hidden in Venice by the Medicis in the middle ages. The Medicis were a dynasty from the Florentine republic – why on Earth would they hide their treasure in another country?! The treasure was originally plundered during the Eighth Crusade, the movie tells us that this was sponsored by Louis XIV. Wikipedia however, tells us that it was sponsored by Louis IX.
There seem to be no historical facts in this historical movie. You have to wonder what the extras in the scene where they flashback to the crusades were thinking: “What’s this movie called again? ‘Shark in Venice’? So what are we doing here?”.
This film is so full of mistakes that “Shark Attack 3″ looks almost flawless. Scuba divers with breathing apparatus in their mouths are apparently talking on 2 way radios throughout the movie. If your mouth has scuba gear in it, how can you talk Stephen Baldwin?! Answer me that!
This movie also contains one of my favourite movie mistakes of all time. After yet another diver gets eaten by a shark, they radio for an ambulance. We then see a shot of a speedboat with a flashing blue light and hear its siren as it goes past. However, the boat has “Vigili del Fuoco” written on its side. I’m no expert in Italian, but a quick Googling of the phrase will give you the result you’d expect from a bad movie.
The script is absolutely dire. Baldwin is in Venice to identify his dad’s body after a shark attack. Between arriving in Venice and getting to the morgue, Baldwin’s gormless fiancée comments that the city is “so beautiful”. Who cares?! His dad’s dead!
As with all Nu Image movies, this has its fair share of stock footage. A wonderful surprise and potential Easter Egg for idiots like me is the re-use of an original shot from “Shark Attack 3″. It’s used in a dream sequence, so I can only imagine that Baldwin’s character saw “Shark Attack 3″ on the flight to Venice.
One of my favourite things about this movie is the extras. When your main cast are used to being extras in movies, then your extras are used to not being in movies at all. Their acting is hilarious. In particular, look out for the hotel porter cowering from uzi-wielding mafioso.
This movie is fantastically bad. A true celluloid stinker. It deserves a cult following (something I’m sure the bankrupt Baldwin is hoping for) because of its dreadful acting, ridiculous CGI set-pieces and farcical, nonsensical plot.
This is another movie that shows exactly what makes Bad Movies so entertaining. You have got to see it to believe how bad it is. I will even go out on a limb and say that it’s better than Shark Attack 3. There’s a “making of” feature on the DVD in which the producer says that they wanted to “redefine the shark genre”. If ever such a genre existed in the first place, then I’m sure this movie breaks all the rules into little pieces, burns them, and shoots the ashes with a shotgun.
Who else other than Nu Image would name a boat in post-production using icanhascheezburger’s “LOLcat” generator?!
Have you seen “Shark in Venice”? Leave a comment, I always get back to you!
I saw this a few months before Stephen Baldwin was on Celeb BB, I laughed my tiny socks off at his vacant stare & wooden acting. When he arrived on BB I realised he wasn’t acting he was being himself. His filmography alone should have it’s own bad movie blog!
I love nut cases!