On paper, 2012's Bait 3D sounds like a hoot and a half. After all, B-movie extraordinaire Russell Mulcahy co-wrote and produced the movie, which is about a supermarket that gets flooded during a tsunami before hungry, man-eating sharks invade the store to feast on the survivors. Unfortunately, however, this Australian shark thriller is underwhelming and sorely lacking bite. Only occasionally showing signs of goodness, the picture predominantly sits there on the screen, dull and limp, with its amateur-hour presentation frequently yielding pure boredom. Although it is a notable step up compared to the irredeemable Shark Night 3D since Bait at least contains R-rated levels of gore and language, the film nevertheless fails to provide the joyful sense of B-movie lunacy that Piranha 3D nailed back in 2010.

After losing his soon-to-be brother-in-law in a traumatic shark attack, lifeguard Josh (Xavier Samuel) also loses his fiancée Tina (Sharni Vinson) in a break-up and regresses into a state of depression. Leaving his lifeguard job, Josh takes a lowly position stocking shelves at a local supermarket, with his life now entirely devoid of ambition. Unfortunately, on a day when Josh is working, Tina enters the supermarket with her new boyfriend. Unfortunately, too, on the very same day, two men attempt to rob the store. And just to top off Josh's wave of bad luck, an earthquake hits, resulting in a devastating tsunami washing ashore. The tsunami moves through the area, flooding the store and trapping a small group of survivors inside the building. As the group seeks a means of escape, a more immediate threat emerges in the form of two man-eating great white sharks that swim through the flood waters and into the supermarket.
The fact that Bait has six credited screenwriters and that Mulcahy was replaced as director at the last minute (by Cut director Kimble Rendall) seems to suggest that the film had a somewhat troubled production. Additionally, filming took place back in 2010, the movie's release date was delayed several times, and the original synopsis suggested an assortment of sharks in the water. There are just two great whites in the finished movie, even though there are still indicators that this may have been a last-minute change. (Josh watches a news report near the film's beginning about a surplus of sharks in local waters.) The eventual shark set-up here does not exactly work - there are two main areas in the supermarket and one great white shark in each area, which is too convenient. Plus, great whites are not usually this fierce; tiger or bull sharks would be far more appropriate for this premise. It may seem foolhardy to ask for realism since that is the least of Bait's problems, but the flick takes itself a bit too seriously at times, asking us to actually accept this malarkey with a straight face.

Bait should have been something like 1999's Deep Blue Sea, which was cheesy fun in all the right ways. Instead, the endeavour is bland and in desperate need of a schlocky touch to make the experience more enjoyable. The dialogue is one primary downfall. Although it would be unreasonable to expect robust, witty dialogue, the chatter is not even enjoyable in a cheesy sense - it's just fucking boring, guaranteed to make you cringe, wince, or want to yell out smartass remarks. Worse, the film concerns itself with many clichéd squabbles and scenarios that fail to give the characters much weight. For instance, one of the robbers survives the tsunami, leading to a great deal of tension between the characters. Plus there's the awkwardness of Josh being around Tina and her new boyfriend. And so on and so forth. One of the most awkward moments spotlights a character trying to make sense of the tragedy by believing it to be some kind of karmic justice to punish immature selfishness.
As a horror movie, Bait is often sleep-inducing, as Rendall merely fills the flick with predictable jump scares without achieving much in the way of honest-to-goodness tension. The special effects are often ridiculously slipshod, as well. This is 2012, and realistic shark effects should be achievable right now. Hell, Deep Blue Sea showed signs that filmmakers were getting extremely close in the late 1990s, especially with mechanical sharks, but things have somehow only gotten worse over a decade later. Bait's shark effects are underwhelming - the mechanical sharks look okay, but the computer-generated fishes never look believable, which harms Rendall's half-hearted attempts at suspense. Jaws features a fake-looking shark, yet Steven Spielberg mostly kept the monster concealed. On the other hand, Rendall insists on keeping the fake sharks in full view all the time during Bait despite their unconvincing disposition, and as a result, it is hard to feel involved in anything that happens. Heck, the first sighting of a shark in the opening sequence is hilarious, and not in a good way. The phoniness of the sharks is odd since the production values are otherwise solid - the tsunami looks terrific, and the interior supermarket sets are impressively intricate.

On a positive note, dark humour occasionally lightens the movie, which is mainly provided by Lincoln Lewis's hilarious turn as sleazebag surfer Kyle. Lewis is easily the best thing in the flick. Whereas the rest of the characters are utterly bland, Lewis keeps firing off hilarious one-liners, and his over-the-top douchebag routine is side-splitting. Alas, Lewis aside, the acting is seriously woeful - it looks as if the filmmakers recruited a bunch of high school drama dropouts. The actors sound stiff, dull and boring, and they seem to regurgitate dialogue without any conviction or intensity. It's a huge problem.
Perhaps the fundamental problem with Bait 3D is that the filmmakers were unsure where to take it. On the one hand, its premise and a few moments seem to suggest that the film is meant to be taken as cheesy B-movie fun. On the other hand, most of the movie is alarmingly self-serious, making the rest of its problems (stiff acting, lousy dialogue) appear all the more glaring. Rendall is not especially adept at building tension, rendering Bait an unremarkable, poorly-written horror movie. It's somewhat entertaining if you have nothing better to do on a rainy afternoon, but the film should have been so much more.
4.8/10