Three years after losing her research team and husband to an attack by an abnormally large Mako shark named "Lillith" the team had been tracking at the Pacific Garbage Patch, marine biologist Sophia Asslas (Berenice Bejo) is approached by Mika (Lea Leviant) of the environmental group S. O. S. Or Save our Seas saying the group have located Lillith's tracker in the Seine with incidents such as a driver crashing into the Seine and the body not being recovered. Initially skeptical, Sophia's fears are soon confirmed as circumstances soon see her team with Adil (Nassim Lyes) of the French police's River Brigade to try to handle the situation while dealing with potentially life threatening interference from both S. O. S. As well as the publicity and money hungry Mayor of Paris (Anne Marivin) who is hosting a triathlon in the Seine.
Under Paris is the latest Netflix release and comes to us via versatile genre director Xavier Gens. The movie is another entry in the well tapped well of the subgenre of Shark movies that ever since the release of Jaws have come to acknowledge that bar will never be set with some opting for character studies, some using the format as an excuse for cheapness, while others go to the extreme of over the top excess (see examples of Deep Blue Sea and The Meg films). With Under Paris or Sous la Seine we definitely have an example of over the top excess and it's the best kind of ridiculousness that I'll admit I'm a sucker for.
While the movie has an environmental subtext in discussing real world issues like climate change and the Pacific Garbage Patch, that's honestly pretty secondary so this is less An Inconvenient Truth and more The Day After Tomorrow if the villain were sharks instead of global warming. From the opening slaughter at the garbage patch that cuts loose with the blood and gore in a rather refreshing fashion (even if I'll admit I could've gone for some more practical work intermixed with what we have) Under Paris delivers the intensity and excess you'd expect from a movie like this and it unapologetically dives in and goes for it. The acting from our leads of Berenice Bejo and Nassime Lyes is good and I give the actors props for treating this material as seriously as they would a procedural like Spiral. Anne Marivin serves as our secondary antagonist as a greedy mayor a la Jaws who isn't even trying to be subtle from her introduction that has her gesticulating over a scale model of Paris illustrating her big plans for the triathlon. And last but not least we have the shark itself Lillith, while the effects to bring the shark aren't top of the line (it's a modestly budgeted French film), what the producers lack in finer detail and rendering power they more than make up for with creativity and spirit. While they could've stopped with the idea of "shark in the Seine" and that would've been plenty to sell the movie, they go several steps beyond and the revelations about the shark not only have (sometimes literal) Earth shattering effect, but become borderline apocalyptic.
I'll admit it's difficult to objectively review a movie like Under Paris because you can find no shortage of logical and scientific leaps that it takes, but it's that all too rare B-movie that could that commits to a bonkers high concept premise without feeling the need to wink at the camera and let the audience know it's in on the joke. It has scares that work, the action's exhilarating, and it's just fun. Sometimes all you need is fun escapist nonsense and you'll find that here I assure you.
Under Paris is the latest Netflix release and comes to us via versatile genre director Xavier Gens. The movie is another entry in the well tapped well of the subgenre of Shark movies that ever since the release of Jaws have come to acknowledge that bar will never be set with some opting for character studies, some using the format as an excuse for cheapness, while others go to the extreme of over the top excess (see examples of Deep Blue Sea and The Meg films). With Under Paris or Sous la Seine we definitely have an example of over the top excess and it's the best kind of ridiculousness that I'll admit I'm a sucker for.
While the movie has an environmental subtext in discussing real world issues like climate change and the Pacific Garbage Patch, that's honestly pretty secondary so this is less An Inconvenient Truth and more The Day After Tomorrow if the villain were sharks instead of global warming. From the opening slaughter at the garbage patch that cuts loose with the blood and gore in a rather refreshing fashion (even if I'll admit I could've gone for some more practical work intermixed with what we have) Under Paris delivers the intensity and excess you'd expect from a movie like this and it unapologetically dives in and goes for it. The acting from our leads of Berenice Bejo and Nassime Lyes is good and I give the actors props for treating this material as seriously as they would a procedural like Spiral. Anne Marivin serves as our secondary antagonist as a greedy mayor a la Jaws who isn't even trying to be subtle from her introduction that has her gesticulating over a scale model of Paris illustrating her big plans for the triathlon. And last but not least we have the shark itself Lillith, while the effects to bring the shark aren't top of the line (it's a modestly budgeted French film), what the producers lack in finer detail and rendering power they more than make up for with creativity and spirit. While they could've stopped with the idea of "shark in the Seine" and that would've been plenty to sell the movie, they go several steps beyond and the revelations about the shark not only have (sometimes literal) Earth shattering effect, but become borderline apocalyptic.
I'll admit it's difficult to objectively review a movie like Under Paris because you can find no shortage of logical and scientific leaps that it takes, but it's that all too rare B-movie that could that commits to a bonkers high concept premise without feeling the need to wink at the camera and let the audience know it's in on the joke. It has scares that work, the action's exhilarating, and it's just fun. Sometimes all you need is fun escapist nonsense and you'll find that here I assure you.
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