The Requin (2022)

1 Star (out of 4)

Tooth and Flail

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Aside from the terrible writing, the shrill, annoying acting, dumb characters, cheap-looking CGI, and the excruciatingly cruel backstory, this abominable shark movie barely even features any sharks!

Married couple Jaelyn (Alicia Silverstone) and Kyle (James Tupper) take a luxury vacation in Vietnam while coping with the death of their daughter during childbirth. They rent a cabin on the water, and after a few days decide to cut things short and return home. But a monsoon hits, smashing into their cabin and sending it drifting out to sea. During the calamity, Kyle breaks his leg, and, in addition to their other troubles, the blood swirling into the water begins to attract killer sharks!

For a movie actually called The Requin — which is a type of tropical shark — one might expect that there ought to be some sharks showing up at least in the first hour. Instead, we have to suffer through a dippy pop song, a mournful music score, a couple grieving and mourning, some montages, and lots of scenes of Kyle being ineffectual and Jaelyn whimpering. The turning point is when the couple mutually decides that it would be a good idea to signal a passing ship by lighting a fire on their wooden raft. No kidding.

The first shark attack goes quickly when Jaelyn takes out two sharks with a pointy stick. (Again... not kidding.) And then we wait a painfully long time as they drift and sleep and get more and more sunburned and salt-encrusted. The climax is marred by bad, dislocated CG effects and jumpy shark footage.

Ultimately, it's not clear which cinematic crime committed by this movie is worse: introducing us to characters so dim and annoying and expecting us to get on board with their story, or using the death of a child as a way to gain sympathy. Either way, The Requin is surely one of the worst shark attack movies ever made, if not the worst. (Yes, that includes Jaws: The Revenge.)