Yet another in the long line of Creature Feature TV movies that seem to be the bane of modern cinema in the 2000s. SHARK SWARM has everything I dislike about such productions: a low budget (in a bad way), poor cast, rubbish script, and, worst of all, rubbishy CGI effects. The effects in this one are among the worst I've seen: the sharks are relegated to murky, underwater CGI images throughout the film, with nary a mechanical beastie in sight. The budget is low too, of course, and the script takes the scraps left over by JAWS and turns them into a lacklustre thriller with obvious nods to the likes of PIRANHA and others, all of them better films than this. So once again we have a greedy corporate type busy building a business and ignoring the warning signs; a courageous, humble fisherman who first spots the menace; bodies washed up on the beach; fishermen catching something more than they bargained for; marine biologists and women in rubber suits, and lots of other B-movie elements. Even one of the characters is called Bill Girdler, in reference to a director of popular 'animal attack' movies back in the '70s.The one thing this film does have going for it is the cast: although the performances are bad, more of the faces are familiar than you might expect. I'm not talking about the B-movie regulars who pop up in this, although there are a lot of them (John Enos III, John Schneider, Heather McComb, Willie C. Carpenter). I'm talking about the 'once weres', former greats at the box office now relegated to making this trash and picking up a pay cheque afterwards. Daryl Hannah, old collagen lips, whose career seems to be in free fall with this and KUNG FU KILLER; and F. Murray Abraham, who knows no shame with this and BLOOD MONKEY (although his appearance here is little more than a cameo), and worst of all, the leathery, bewigged Armand Assante, who once played to audiences in JUDGE DREDD and 1492. Meanwhile, director James A. Contner once worked as a cinematographer on JAWS 3D, so I guess he knew what he was doing when he set out to shoot this. A worthless movie indeed.

The only reason why I didn't rate Shark Swarm any lower was because of Armand Assante. Despite his rather stereotypical villainous character, he does put some gusto into his performance and he is enjoyable to watch. But the rest of the cast are poor. F Murray Abraham, outstanding in Amadeus, is wasted, he managed to save Blood Monkeys but he is not in Shark Swarm anywhere long enough to make the same impact. Daryl Hannah I loved in Splash and Roxanne, but other than her beauty she is very robotic and bland. John Schneider looks bored out of his mind, and who can blame him? They are not helped however their underdeveloped and very clichéd characters, nor by the horrendously cheesy writing. The story takes forever to get going, and never really picks up. The exposition scenes are dull and poorly written, the climax is contrived and the attacks are not scary or suspenseful in the slightest. The sharks are used sparsely, in hindsight you'd think that would work, however aside from the fact that they are horribly rendered in every scene they appear in(even the shark effects in Jersey Shore Shark Attack were this bad) you also don't learn anything about their origins or why they attack in the first place. In conclusion, Shark Swarm has nothing in its favour other than a pretty good turn from Assante(and actually even he deserved better than this). 2/10 Bethany Cox

This made-for-cable mini-series can be predictable, but actually interesting. The CGI is at fault of being repetitive although not totally distracting. Nice photography and decent enough story about a small California fishing town being starved out by a greedy industrial millionaire Hamilton Lux(Armand Assante). Peaceful waters have slowly been poisoned by toxic waste in hopes of killing off the local fishing . Lux is wanting to strangle the business of Full Moon Bay in order to turn the area into a high dollar luxury resort complex. With lack of food supply, numerous swarms of Great White sharks enter the bay killing for sustenance and pleasure. Fisherman Daniel Wilder(John Schnider) and his business owner wife Brook(Daryl Hannah)are joined by Dan's brother(Roark Critchlow)and a Marine biologist (Heather McComb)in putting up a last ditch fight with Lux to save the bay. Also in the cast: John Enos III, Gene Davis, Mimi Michaels and F. Murray Abraham.

This movie was a classic "B" - - SciFi type of movie. It has a wonderful cast of really good actors...but in my opinion the plot was anemic, the directing was even more-so...and I loved it! Why? Because the cast each did an excellent job of acting and the setting was believable. One can see from the 'heft' of big stars where the budget most certainly was spent. It most certainly wasn't spent on special effects or, for that matter, screen writing.All in all, I would not only recommend it because of its positive aspects...but would watch it again and again if the opportunity affords itself. The positives outweigh the negatives.