When Shark Movies Finally Remember How to Have Fun (But Still Forget Why We Came)
Shark movies have become a cinematic punchline. Somewhere between Jaws’ existential terror and today’s direct-to-streaming nonsense, filmmakers forgot the primal appeal of these creatures: they’re nature’s perfect killing machines. Enter Above & Below, a film that feels like a tipsy bar bet between The Shallows and Sicario. It’s 2026’s most delightfully absurd reminder that sometimes the best way to save a genre is to stop pretending it deserves respect.
Why Are Shark Movies So Bad at Being Shark Movies?
Let’s address the blood trail in the water: most shark films today are just Jaws fanfiction with worse CGI. Directors seem obsessed with replicating Spielberg’s tension but forget the key ingredient—fear. Modern entries treat sharks like underwater clowns, prioritizing goofy jump scares over legitimate dread. Above & Below doesn’t just acknowledge this problem; it weaponizes it. The sharks here aren’t existential threats—they’re inconvenient hazards, like a wasp at a picnic. But here’s the twist: this might be the healthiest approach to the genre in years.
The Real Villains Aren’t the Sharks—They’re the Friends We Made Along the Way
What makes Above & Below fascinating is its willingness to split its threats. The criminals-on-a-boat subplot isn’t just a B-story; it’s the main event. Antonio Banderas, chewing scenery like a cartoon shark himself, delivers a masterclass in villainous camp. His character—a pirate kingpin with a philosopher’s obsession with oceanic Darwinism—feels like if Pablo Escobar hosted Blue Planet II. Personally, I’d pay double to see Banderas reprise this role forever. His henchmen, meanwhile, are such delightfully unhinged caricatures that you’ll root for their demise purely out of aesthetic appreciation.
The Sharks: Too Busy Being Practical to Be Interesting
The CGI sharks here are… fine. They look passable in murky water, which is practically a win by post-2012 standards. But what’s most telling is how little they matter. The film treats them like budgetary afterthoughts—a stark contrast to the lovingly staged human-on-human violence. One character literally gets shot mid-monologue about shark danger, which might be the film’s most meta joke. If Jaws taught us that the unseen monster is terrifying, Above & Below retorts, “Sure, but have we considered just… not showing them at all?”
The Accidental Genius of Making Us Not Care
What’s truly radical here is the film’s rejection of stakes. The protagonists are so terminally clueless that their deaths land like punchlines. When one character panics about sharks near a diving cage, another casually floats by outside it, scoffing at her fear. This isn’t bad writing—it’s a philosophical stance. Above & Below dares to ask: What if the real horror isn’t the sharks, but the people who think this is a good idea?
The Future of the Genre: More Banderas, Less Pretension
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Above & Below works because it embraces the B-movie chaos the genre deserves. It’s not trying to be art—it’s trying to be a two-hour inside joke about how stupid we all are for watching shark movies. The real tragedy isn’t the underused sharks; it’s that Hollywood spent decades trying to make Jaws 19 when they should’ve been making Pirates of the Caribbean with teeth.
If this film has a legacy, I hope it’s this: a wake-up call to stop making shark movies for film critics. Give me more Antonio Banderas rapping about maritime crime. Give me protagonists who deserve their gruesome fates. And for the love of Bruce the animatronic shark, stop pretending we’re here for anything but the carnage. The ocean’s already scary enough—we might as well laugh while it eats us.
