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Wow! Such a good movie.

Simply Perfect

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

I rented Sharkwater expecting an environmentally conscious documentary with the emphasis largely on the sharks and their plight. I expected calm reasoning and impassioned calls for defending an endangered species. Instead, I got an ideological screed which actually hurt the reputation of the environmental movement.The film traces the activities of Rob Stewart and his activism on behalf of endangered sharks. The film has some beautiful shark photography, and makes a good argument that we should not see sharks as a danger, but as a vital part of the ecosystem.However, the movie falters when it moves to examine the activities of Stewart and Paul Watson, with whom he has teamed up to defend the sharks. The first troubling sign is when we see the boat they are using for its activities. It has markings on it to list the whaling and fishing boats it has sunk. Stewart depicts Watson and his cohorts in the Sea Shepherd Society as men of action. In fact, they seem disturbingly close to terrorists.This impression is confirmed when the boat attacks a fishing boat that is engaged in illegal sharking. Although Watson and his crew claim to have gotten the go ahead from the Costa Rican government, their actions border on outright terrorism, ramming the much smaller fishing vessel. Their actions at this point create a serious risk of injury and death for the fishing crew, and eliminate all sympathy for Stewart and his cohorts.The film asserts that the fishing crew is funded by the Asian mafia, and that subsequent legal prosecution of Watson and his crew is a result of legal corruption. This ignores the fact that they were ramming a smaller ship. Even if they did so to enforce the law, this simply makes them vigilantes.Furthermore, Stewart's attitude towards sharks at times reminds one of Timothy Treadwell. Even if they are not man-eating monstrosities, they are wild animals that need to be treated with respect. At the beginning of the film, we see Stewart grabbing and basically hugging a shark, holding it in place for over a minute. He is lucky the shark did not turn and bite him in self defense.I turned this film off roughly halfway through in disgust. It may have gotten better, but I highly doubt it.

I have heard nothing but great praises about this movie. Since I also love documentaries and animals, I set out to see it with great enthusiasm. The movie started off quite well, so I figured I was in for a treat. There were beautiful underwater shots, and it seemed like a legitimate documentary, although the narrator's lack of commentary skills, and low audio quality were foreshadowing bad things to come. I have seen enough documentaries to know to take every one of them with a grain of salt. The problem with documentaries is that (while they should be presenting facts objectively) they are all created to serve one purpose in mind: to convince the viewers of the author's ideas/ideals/point of view. In the case of Sharkwater the ideas and ideals of the author were at the level of an elementary school student. His 'scientific' reasoning makes perfect sense if you are either 6 years old, or are completely brain-dead. Don't get me wrong, I am all for saving this planet, and I agree, eradicating animal species one after another is unacceptable. However, a marine biology themed movie made by a complete amateur without any scientific training is probably going to do more damage to the cause than good. Introduce a complete hack of a Greenpeace activist as a 'subject matter expert', and some shameless self-promotion tactics in a pathetic attempt to be recognized as a hero, and you have a complete disaster. These guys filmed themselves sinking fishing vessels in international waters, armed with the argument that out there no one has authority over them, claiming themselves to be heroes for enforcing local laws. Get it? They were enforcing local laws outside of the country's borders. Needless to say, they were also outraged for being arrested by authorities for attempted murder. I guess, enforcing local laws in international waters has made them forget about the existence of international laws... no matter where you are, attacking other people, and trying to sink their boats (even if they are engaged in illegal poaching) is attempted murder. There is also a completely unnecessary section about the author being attacked by flesh-eating disease. Apparently the doctors had to amputate his leg. Then he made some phone calls to his relatives, assuring them that he had things under control, and that everything was going to be fine. All this with astounding confidence from a person who's about to have his leg amputated. Then guess what happened? He was tougher than the flesh-eating disease! He defied all odds against him, saving his own leg, ripping out the IV tube from his arm, and and then immediately rushing off to the very country that had an arrest warrant against him for attempted murder, just because his cause for saving the sharks was more important than his health, leg or life in prison... For these reasons I found this movie extremely pathetic. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of people that loved this movie... however, now that I think about it, they all had the IQ of a tadpole...

I would just like to comment on some of the issues that have been raised regarding the documentary...I don't believe that the words that were used regarding slavery were directed at the countries who have a massive income from shark fining..The programme was showing the fragile nature of our plant, and was showing how awful our impact on sea life and the rest of the world will be in the the future! Our children and their children will wonder what happened to so many species that became extinct, and the impact this has had on the world, and will look back at this and question human kind...as we have done in our generation regarding 'slavery' as an example....It's not slavery..but again another example of the world damaging life, and the world live in!!!

This movie should be re-edited, get a new narrator, and get more solid facts with more respected biologists like Canada's, David Suzuki. Why didn't they get Doctor Suzuki to narrate? He is well know and respected world wide and fully supports animal rights. He may have even donated his time, if they approached him, but I don't think he would agree with most of the movies ethics or lack of. I really want to know, "What did Dr. David Suzuki think of this movie?" I fully understand that there is a serious issue regarding to people killing off sharks.. I believe that they should be left alone like any other animal unless they provide some sort of medical cure, but they do not as far as I know. This movie tries to jump on the "Environmental Band Wagon". It was poor done and reminds me of one of my students handing in a book report for a book they had skimmed the night before. It is very vague and amateurish. Not to mention the lack of ethics on their part. They would rather ram another vessel and risk killing human beings, to save a few sharks. They didn't have any backing from any government to do so. This is why they were being arrested and charged for several counts of attempt of murder. If you see a dog being beaten on the street and decide that it is appropriate to beat the dog owner with a baseball bat….you will be arrested and you will be charged with either aggravated assault or attempt of murder.Another thing that bothered me was when the photographer had to be hospitalized because he had a "Flesh Eating Disease", they didn't show the his leg and to movie makers that would have been the "Money Shot". So why didn't they show his leg? I think that this drama was invented to given the narrator more depth and to prove that he was risking his life to save the sharks. In fact, he did very little to save the sharks. The Canadian Movie Production Company "Sharkwater Productions" deserves most of the credit The photographer took photos and film footage and that was about it.Oh yes…we did get to see him swim around in a skin tight bathing suite for the last have hour of the movie….What was that all about? Where they going for the female/gay demographic?