My quick rating - 5.7/10. Beast of War opens in 1942 with some basic training-camp setup, complete with nurses who clearly wandered in from another film entirely. After about 19 minutes of bonding, banter, and establishing that Leo (Mark Coles Smith) is our main guy, everyone gets unceremoniously punted into the Timor Sea when their ship is attacked. I will say that the period at least looks convincing.
From there, it’s eight soggy soldiers balancing on a makeshift raft, surrounded by fog, bullets from enemy planes above, and one extremely motivated great white shark below. Not a metaphorical one. A literal “I'm going to breach dramatically every ten minutes like I’m auditioning for my own spin-off” shark. Half the movie is just this thing popping up like it’s trying to figure out its best camera angle.
Credit where it’s due — the camerawork is solid. A lot of shots sit right at water level or just beneath it, which does a great job of keeping your stomach clenched. The effects are surprisingly convincing, too. When the shark hits, it hits. Even when it’s bordering on aquatic self-parody, it still looks mean enough to ruin anyone’s swim.
Given this comes from Kiah Roache-Turner — the guy behind the insanely inventive Wyrmwood films — I was hoping for a wilder take. Instead, it plays things pretty straight. No zombie sharks. No improvised spearguns made from human femurs. Just a classically structured survival thriller. It’s familiar. Maybe too familiar. There’s nothing here you haven’t seen in Jaws, Open Water, or every Discovery Channel Docudrama at 8 pm.
Still, familiar doesn’t always mean boring. The acting’s solid across the board. The tension works. The pacing keeps things tight enough. Roache-Turner was also able to find a way to inject other predators aside from the shark. The worst of all, Humans. And I’ll give them props for the ending — let’s just say someone gives a hand in a way I didn’t see coming.
Overall, it's enjoyable enough shark warfare, but if Bruce the Shark took fewer selfies, I could’ve believed it more. A decent float, but not quite a bite.
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