FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

nebk I didn't know much about the plot before I saw this movie. I figured that it probably wouldn't be to bad and since it has some known faces I expected at least a decent story. I was wrong. The story and the movie are bad and the acting is nothing special. The one redeeming feature is the beautiful scenery of Cape Town and it's surrounding areas. Having been in that part of South Africa it was nice to see them again. The story could have made sense but by the end there are too many plot holes and things that don't make sense. A marine biologist (played by Halle Berry) who has spent 10 years studying sharks and swimming with them is involved in a shark attack at the start of the movie. Her friend is killed and as a result she has withdrawn from the shark diving world and and takes tourists on boat rides and shows them seals and penguins. She is in financial dire straits and her estranged husband (Oliver Martinez) proposes a deal for them to take out a rich tourist and his son to swim with sharks. He offers them 100 000 euros (in local currency over 1 Million Rand) for this. Berry's character reluctantly accepts the offer since she is tricked into believing that someone paying that kind of money will be happy with the promise of being taken out to sea and maybe seeing sharks. She promises she will show them seals, and if sharks happen to be present then great. The tourist promises to stay in the shark diving cage until Berry calls him out when it is safe if they do dive with sharks.When they are out in the ocean they go near Seal Island which is world renowned for having an area around the island known as the kill zone where most shark attacks on seals happen. To make matters worse it is the middle of mating season. So yes, they are taking tourists out to swim in the kill zone in the middle of shark mating season. At first the rich tourist is told to stay in the shark diving cage but he disregards the instructions and goes out within a few minutes of the dive. This annoys Berry' and she wants to call the whole thing off. Instead she gets into an argument with her husband and changes her mind and decides to take them further out to sea in storm like weather where they can see some really big sharks of up to 20 feet. I am not making this up, she literally changes her mind after a shouting argument with her husband and makes a great decision of taking out a small ship into the middle if the ocean in rough conditions with relatively inexperienced and annoying divers. On top of this, they had steering problems with the boat but the assistant fixed it so they go on anyway. When they get there she goads the tourist into diving without the cage, even though he changed his mind by then. So all of a sudden from being indecisive Berry is almost pushing the man to go into the open water without the protection of a cage. At one point I literally expected them to start riding the sharks rodeo style or jump down their throats (which in fact would have been more preferable). As is to be expected the storm tips the boat over and some of the characters are attacked and killed by sharks. There are also minor annoyances in the movie that make it even worse. The tourist lights up a cigarette when he gets on the boat but Berry tells him there is no smoking on her boat. She however doesn't have a problem with him drinking beer even though he is going to go diving with sharks. I guess tipsy or drunk tourists are better for shark diving than those nasty smokers. She also does nothing when her husband light up. She also doesn't take any air cylinders on board because sharks don't like bubbles apparently. They don't much like idiotic plot lines either and in that aspect they are very similar to us movie watchers. The acting: Berry tries to carry off a look of indecisiveness and vulnerability but she looks prissy and as if she stepped off of a modeling catwalk. Her husband tries to be caring and helpful but looks dodgy with ulterior motives. Their assistant is supposed to be the comic relief but he is more or less annoying especially when playing a game on his iPad (in the game he is the shark getting points for eating surfers). The rich tourist is a just annoying and not likable at all, and his son is irrelevant and there to fill the boat and some screen time. I lived in Cape Town, and know people who dived with sharks and who are certified divers and they would never go out in middle of shark mating season, in bad weather with inexperienced divers and then almost force them out of the cage. They especially wouldn't do that when the Great White Shark is the shark they are after. So it is just nonsense, because no one in their right mind would behave the way they do. There is also a scene at the beginning where poachers are shown diving for abalone near the kill zone of seal island in the dark. I mean are they insane, why not attach some nice juicy steaks to their dive suits whilst they are at it. Overall this movie attempts to be a character driven movie with sub-plots and stories. It fails abysmally in this since by the end of the movie you care more about the sharks then the people. Give this a miss, you might as well watch the discovery channel for shots of beautiful scenery and sharks.

robbycornateanu My girlfriend and I, who are huge fan's of Discovery Channels yearly Shark Week, watched this movie Dark Tide despite all the bad reviews.. and our shark instincts were dead-on! This is actually the best Hollywood movie to ever come out on sharks! Every other movie about sharks, from Jaws to all the other silly horror flicks about sharks to the even sillier Sharknado, #1) don't show any real sharks (just fake ones) whereas this Film shows real breath-taking Great White sharks in the open ocean - the filmmakers very own actual footage on location in the shark-infested South Africa, & #2) all the other shark movies just perpetuate the same misconceptions about sharks, whereas this is like an episode of Discovery's Shark Week, except its delivered from within a Film plot starring Halle Berry and her BF Olivier Martinez (both of whom do a good job). In addition, all the reviewers are completely ignorant to what this movie is really about... they're obviously not Shark Week fans, because if they were, they would realize that this movie Dark Tide is really about the amazingly spiritual & break-thru shark research done by Mike Rutzen who is also known as the Sharkman, (whom this movie credits at the end) who on one of the best episodes of Shark Week a couple years ago showed that these apex predators also are creatures that need to give & receive nurture & affection; and he even not just swims but also plays and like literally is cuddled by many different species of "deadly" sharks, including Great Whites, like as if they were cats or dogs snuggling next to their human owners. So this movie is loosely based on Mike Rutzen (his videos actually way supercede this movie), a true scientist and biologist and nature-lover (at least in the opinion of this scientist and human M.D. trauma surgeon;)

p-stepien Shark Valley near the Cape in Southern Africa is the optimal place for cage diving with the Great White. Or in the case of Kate Mathieson (Halle Berry) a superior opportunity to free dive with the monstrous sea fauna. Enticed by the intelligence and ferocious beauty, Kate dedicates her life to understanding the animals, thus earning the nickname Shark Whisperer. However, once her whispering remains unheard and a pesky shark chows down her father figure. This leads to Kate retreating from the water and leading a rundown life of ocean tour operator verging on bankruptcy. That is until her quasi-husband Jeff (Olivier Martinez) brings an offer that cannot be refused: entertain millionaire Will Brady (Ralph Brown) and his son Luke (Luke Tyler) the opportunity to swim with sharks in exchange for an obscene amount of cash.Save for monetary gain and the vacation of a lifetime, "Dark Tide" fails to truly deliver any explanation for its existence. Director John Stockwell obviously felt some one-on-one full-frontal action with sharks would make for a good movie, especially if it also incorporates hi-fives with seals, low-fives with penguins, riding the waves with dolphins and Halle Berry donning a bikini. Given the sharks turned out to be decent actors, the same can't however be said about the rest of the cast, who imitate impressions of former glory just to get a paycheck and have as much time to benefit from the surroundings as possible. The only somewhat interesting character is the obnoxious Will Brady, charmless and obvious fish chowder before the end credits. However, honestly I was hoping the rest of the cast get munched up as soon as possible, leaving the sharks to take over the remaining runtime and play out the remainder of the movie as a National Geographic documentary.The clumsy script naturally doesn't help, not sure of whether its more on the side of "The Big Blue" action-drama or the "Jaws" thriller-killer. Thankfully or not, the sharks seem to have the best fleshed out characters, not senseless killers, but predatory animals which work within their own set of rules. Overseeing them is a clichéd and lumbered tale with no ambition or zeal.

Sunniva Reilly Ever since I first saw Jaws, I've been searching for more good films about sharks, but there is something about the subject matter that tends to turn the film tacky. This film isn't tacky. Sadly it isn't any good either.Halle Berry plays Kate Mathieson, a marine biologist of the Erich Ritter school of thinking (Sharks aren't dangerous unless you're scared of them - there's a video of him getting mauled by a bull shark on youtube). During a dive she gets someone killed and refuses to have anything to do with sharks thereafter. Until she needs money and a rich guy offers her 100 000 Euro to take him out and let him swim with great whites.The Good: The sharks, they are so beautiful. And the filming is just exquisite.The Bad: Someone seems to have filmed the first draft of a so-so script. The dialogue is cringeworthy. The characters are woefully underdeveloped. The background conflicts are tired and predicable. There are logic fallacies at every turn. This is where a set of good actors could make all the difference. But they don't. With the exception of Luke, the characters were was so thoroughly unpleasant I honestly didn't care if they got eaten.The House Blend: Sharks are not portrayed just as mindless eating machines. But what are they portrayed as? Inanimate objects really. They swim around in circles, not even acknowledging Kate who is touching them, tugging their tail fins, grabbing hold of their dorsal fins and going for a ride etc.All in all I was disappointed. I wish someone had taken the time to finish the script before turning into a film. A little better dialogue, a little tightening up of the plot, make the characters a little more believable (and sympathetic). It could have made a world of difference.