Parents' Guide to Under Paris

Perhaps intentionally, the second half of this action horror movie is different than the first half. Based on its first half, you'd be forgiven for thinking Under Paris will (continue to) be a dialogue heavy political thriller. There are moments that betray this inevitability, of course, but its tone never hesitates. Played completely straight, no one in this film seems to notice how ridiculous their predicament is. Instead, people seriously and matter-of-factly work on dealing with a particular threat. Oh, what is that you say? A large, "mutant" shark threatens to eat and kill hundreds of people in Paris? Sure, of course, understood. Here's what we're going to do. We'll set up some traps, look for it using this technology, and run away from it screaming when everything goes wrong. Sound like a plan?

So, this movie is silly, but somehow it works. When it does fully flip over into its gore-happy, people-get-eaten second half, the pace ramps up, the action starts popping, and before you know it, the film ends up in a place you might not have been expecting. A few scenes inevitably push believability, like when a character jumps in the water right after she watches a huge shark devour 4-5 people, when someone says, "that's impossible" more than 5 times in 15 minutes, or when people in a stationary speedboat notice something, floor it, go around in a small circle, then turn off the boat, and simply get out. There are some light messages about the potential costs of not dealing with climate change, but this isn't a serious film. This is a film about sharks eating people because people are arrogant and often blinded by other agendas and desires.