We are seeing more attempts at providing diverse stories that involve shark attacks.
We’ve had found footage, isolation horrors and now we have something quite different with No Way Up, which sees survivors of a plane crash try to escape the ocean floor plus man-eating sharks
While the human interest element of No Way Up is mildly intriguing, there are simply not enough sharks to justify this as part of the sub-genre. The caveat to this is when the sharks are in the frame, they look, frankly terrible and thus make their attacks more laughable than scary.
We follow a group of three friends, two partners are their gay best friend, who form an alliance with other survivors post-crash, including a grandmother and her granddaughter, a flight attendant plus a bodyguard played by Star Trek’s Colm Meaney.
For the short time he is in the film, Meaney is actually good value as an intelligent government agent sworn to protect lead and Senator’s daughter Ava.
The other gripe is with side characters leading the rescue mission who are pretty useless, coming in with barely enough fuel to let divers go down and investigate the crash site. This sort of ineptitude, while it drives the plot along and keeps our protagonists isolated, is just plain dumb.
No Way Up is definitely better in concept than in execution. Its artwork would have you believe something far more tense and entertaining is going on, but sadly that’s not the case.
No Way Up is streaming on various digital platforms and available on DVD now.
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