Pretty telling about the quality of shark movies as a whole when this pretty good Netflix one hits my top 5. It’s not that great a film so much as the flotsam and jetsam of this terrible sub-genre is populated by so much crap… with only a handful of good ones floating to the surface.

Under Paris is about a shark who decides to make the river Seine in Paris its home. Shark experts, environmentalists, and river police team up to stop the river from becoming an all-you-can-eat buffet at the moron bar. Doesn’t help that the mayor of Paris is just as single-minded as the mayor of Amity Island (note to self: avoid the Paris triathlon).

This flick has something going for it… a budget. Looks like they filmed some of it in Paris, on the Seine (or close enough for my American eyes). They can afford fairly large crowds of extras, some of whom get their limbs de-limbed by hungry sharks. In fact, the film is gorier than most shark movies too… not splatterific, but at least we have a body count with blood.

By the standards of most no-budget/Syfy/Asylum shark movies, the special effects in this flick are gold standard top notch. No, they aren’t perfect but they are so much better than what we get from the average, sub-average crap in most of this genre. Just not wanting to groan in visual pain as a swimmer gets chomped is a step up from the average.

The film is generally pretty fun with some great shark attack panic and some genuinely eye-opening shots of sharks circling and going in for the kill. I can’t reiterate how nice it is to have sharks in a shark movie too… and that’s a low standard but if you’ve seen enough of these, you know what I mean.

The finale is also pretty cool, going from a shark attack rampage to a sudden disaster movie… which ends in a great pull-back of Paris. I’m suspicious of some of the logic and physics… but, then again, I’m watching a film about a salt-water shark attacking fresh-water Paris. Probably should have checked logic at the door.

This is a pretty good, pretty cool movie that satisfies a shark attack itch… by being an good shark attack movie AND an actually good flick too. Can’t say that very often about this sad sub-genre.

Score: 82