Directed by Joachim Hedén and written by Nick Saltrese, a group of old college friends reunite on a Caribbean scuba diving trip exploring the wreckage of a WWII battleship and find themselves trapped inside the underwater labyrinth of rusted metal surrounded by great white sharks. Starring: Jack Parr, Julian Sands, Alexander Arnold, Kim Spearman, Erin Mullen, Arlo Carter and Maxime Durand.
When it comes to shark themed horror flicks, they’re one of the few subgenres that get cut some slack, we know what they’re about so you give them the benefit of the doubt. You’re never going to be expecting cutting edge cinema, it’s all about entertainment, blood and suspense. Whether The Last Breath truly offers all of those things is debatable but to the filmmakers’ credit, the choice of battleship wreckage was a good one. Adding in extra claustrophobic elements, without having to be completely trapped in one space. It’s a nice change of pace.
However, it gets old pretty fast because, as with many horror films, it takes a good third of its runtime for the sharks to even arrive. Then when they do the effects aren’t stellar and their attacks aren’t particularly exciting. Part of that problem is the characters are especially middling, they don’t really incite rooting for them to survive or wishing for them to get chomped on. So, it leaves you without anything to really invest in, which is absolutely a key component in the success of any film rooted in survival.
Another key problem is the visual, it doesn’t have much to offer, the filmmakers neither embrace the darkness nor the danger. The cinematography is underwhelming, the editing isn’t adding enough of an edge to the attacks, and the sharks are ultimately too visible. Less is more when it comes to fear and sadly, they’re putting all their cards on the table from the beginning here. Meaning the threat never feels that strong, leaving the atmosphere lacking and everything falls fairly flat.
Consequently, it struggles to hold your attention and having average characters then wearing diving masks for a good portion, doesn’t give the actors much of a chance to flesh them out. The performances aren’t bad necessarily but there isn’t much for this ensemble to do. They have stock personalities and relationships, it’s all following the typical playbook. With the exception of Julian Sands‘ Levi who has a nice sarcastic wit but has a fairly small role.
There also isn’t much of an opportunity to throw in some ingenuity or creativeness, which is always a bonus when characters are in survival mode. A clever trick to avoid your chosen monster always makes for a memorable horror moment but no such luck here.
The Last Breath is unfortunately just a very average shark film, if you love them then you should absolutely give it a watch but if you’re not ultra-dedicated, it probably won’t be for you. It feels like it’s simply ticking boxes, it isn’t adding its own flair. The sharks don’t add enough fear to keep you glued in, the characters aren’t very interesting and it takes itself a bit too seriously. Had the filmmakers tried to have some fun with it instead of going straight thriller, it could have been more entertaining.
FilmCarnage.com 