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Parents' Guide to

Shark Bait

By Alistair Lawrence, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 15+

Unoriginal shark thriller; language, threat, gory injuries.

Movie NR 2022 87 minutes
Shark Bait movie poster

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

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There have been a steady stream of B-movies that have tried to have some fun with the shark-attack genre perfected by Jaws back in 1975. Joining those ranks is Shark Bait (also known at Jetski), which sees a group of five friends end up unmoored to two broken jet skis after an adventure goes awry, and then … not much happens. The all-British main cast -- playing Americans to help broaden the movie's appeal, presumably -- do their best to spark off each other. But some love-rat partners aside, there's not much to link them to each other at all, so the audience has little to do other than wait for the Great White predators to find something a bit meatier to sink their teeth into.

In the absence of any new plotting or a more generous special effects budget, movies such as Shark Bait at least need some decent one-liners to stay afloat, but none are forthcoming. The dueling jet skis sequence is the movie's high watermark. The rest is forgettable, as characters have little to do other than pant, gasp and occasionally get eaten alive. Lead couple Nat and Tom manage a redemptive arc of sorts, but for a movie that takes place all at sea there's an awful lot that remains stuck in the shallow end.

Movie Details

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