A colleague of mine has always maintained something crucial and smart about digital visual effects in the movies: It doesn’t entirely matter whether some computer creation is realistic, if it is convincing. This seems especially important in today’s age of effects work that can often be so photorealistic that we’ve attached a term to the phenomenon (“the Uncanny Valley”). The shark, of which there may or may not be more than one, in The Last Breath is definitely convincing, thanks to director Joachim Hedén’s efforts to give its presence a sense of weight to match the terror we feel. It’s also true that no one could possibly call it realistic.
The best way to describe the quality of the digital pixels might be to compare them to the games made a decade ago for one of the major gaming consoles/platforms. Seemingly aware of this fact, Hedén and his cinematographer, Eric Börjeson, cloak the beast in the shadowy corners of the shipwreck that primarily acts as our setting. This decision, though, seems not to be solely for the purposes of hiding the questionable digital effects used to the create the shark(s), but also to amplify the coup of production design that is the wrecked ship, with its many levels and sudden turns and hidden crevices. A horror movie, even one in the extensive subgenre about hapless humans in the feeding path of a shark, needs a good location.
We certainly get that here, and much credit should go to the designers in charge of recreating the USS Charlotte, a WWII-era battleship that sank off the coast of the Virgin Islands in the year 1944. We open during that year, by the way, for a brief prologue in which a pair of hardy soldiers find refuge in the ocean – as well, of course, as a shark. In the present day, divers Noah (Jack Parr) and Levi (the late Julian Sands), the latter of whom is now gruff and depressed after a life spent looking for the Charlotte, discover the shipwreck and immediately contemplate the ways in which they can make money off the discovery. Neither they nor any of the characters who follow them realize, of course, that the wreck is now home to at least one toothy nemesis.
Unluckily for Noah, his former best friend turned friendly rival, the disgustingly rich Wall Street bro Brett (Alexander Arnold) arrives on the nearest beach with his sister Riley (Erin Mullen), Noah’s ex-girlfriend Sam (Kim Spearman) and the nebbish and unassuming Logan (Arlo Carter) to find out if their mutual friend has any leads on an investment opportunity. Noah was once a big New York City boy until moving away rather suddenly five years prior. One nice thing about the screenplay, written by Nick Saltrese, is that it doesn’t put too much importance on these relationships or their petty conflicts. There’s a bit of drama happening in the background of these scenes, and while it eventually drives some of the more flagrantly emotional moments later on, it remains there in the background.
In other words, it gives us just enough to care about these characters without feeling the need to overexplain their problems in the middle of a survivalist horror scenario. Noah tells his rich friend about the shipwreck and, because Levi needs money in order to maintain his business, agrees to let the others accompany him on a dive for a healthy, five-figure sum. This leads to the main attraction of the movie, which is the diving-and-exploring tour of the Charlotte, followed by their frenzied attempt to survive the shark(s) long enough to get back up to the top. The only problem is that the ship is a giant maze.
The details here are masterful in the way they have been maximized for effect. One chamber is only accessible through a massive, unbelievably heavy door, which of course is not entirely ideal when a shark is headed straight to them. A munitions room still houses a lot of shells, and Hedén massages some tension out of the question whether those shells still have explosive power. The shark’s path is far from obvious, since in some cases a long hallway will only either come to a dead end or lead to a flight of stairs.
Does The Last Breath add up to anything other than its simple ambitions as a shark movie? It doesn’t, really, and thankfully, it also doesn’t need to. This is a good example of such a movie because it gives us a good location, a real reason to fear what lurks around the corner and in the shadow of dingy water and some characters that are, at least, worth seeing to the end – if they survive that long. That’s all this movie needs to do.
Photo courtesy of RLJ Entertainment
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