Shark Lake has Dolph as an illegal animal smuggler who gets busted and sent to prison. At the same time, Sara Malakul Lane, the cop who brings him in, is caring for his daughter--essentially taking his daughter from him?--and when he gets out she's not happy--because she's afraid she's going to lose a child that's not hers? Anyway, at the same time, we have some animal attacks near the lake, and they seem too aquatic to be a bear. Could it be a shark? When Dolph film mainstay James Chalke (I wonder if we should start tagging him?) shows up looking for the shark Dolph was supposed to deliver to him, we're able to put two-and-two together. Now the question is, can Lane figure out that Dolph's here to help him, and that his daughter isn't her daughter, in time to save the town from the shark in the lake?
I don't know exactly where to go with this one. The Dolph in a shark film novelty is mitigated some by the fact that he's not in it as much as Lane is--Lane is more the protagonist driving this, even if she has this unhealthy mom obsession with Dolph's daughter--more on that later. The problem we're seeing in a lot of these movies is, if Dolph's not in it much, when he's there he steals the show, and it's not always easy to keep the material compelling when he's not. Some films make it work, others suffer for it, and I think this was more of the latter. The other thing was that Lane's character, because she's playing mama bear to a cub that isn't hers, and is also keeping said cub away from its real papa bear, it makes her character less worthy of our buy-in, which is something we need to get us over the hump when Dolph's not there.
This is now 55 for Dolph. The 60 Club is within sight, and considering we have so many from the 2010s that I haven't done on the site yet, we know it's just a matter of time. It's fitting that he got a shark film like this under his belt, and was able to check off that "wrestled foam shark" box off his acting bucket list. Dolph actually ticks a lot of boxes, doesn't he? Marvel character? Check. Kids toy/cartoon character? Check. DC Universe? Check. Zombie flick? Check. Bond movie? Check. I could keep going, but I think the only box he hasn't checked is Lifetime movie, so when we get Gary Daniels into the 50 Club with him, that will be one area where Daniels has him. Come on David DeCoteau and Vivica A. Fox, get Dolph in one of your "Wrong" movies!
We last saw Sara Malakul Lane in the two Kickboxer reboots/sequels, where she also played a cop, but was more cop in the first one and more damsel in distress in the second. She's all cop here, but I think, as I mentioned above, the "keeping Dolph's daughter away from him when I'm not even her mother and just grabbed this kid because her dad was going to prison" element didn't come off well. If instead she was taking care of the child out of the kindness of her heart, and then it was more voluntary about the child staying or Dolph wanting her to stay, it would have played better. What that did was made it play out more like a Lifetime movie where a woman who can't have kids obsesses over someone else's and tries to take over as the mom, and the real mom has to kill her in the end--maybe "The Wrong Mom" for a title. We needed her to be someone we could fully buy in on to make up for any lack of Dolph, and by the time the story allows her character to win us over, it's pretty late in the game for it to fully work. As an aside, this isn't her first foray into the shark film world, as she was in the first Sharktopus as well.
I will say one thing about this film I liked was that it feels more like it's 90s predecessors than it does the modern shark attack film. None of this movie is being played for laughs, even if it has some laughable moments, and there's definitely not a sense that anyone is in on the joke. If you look at Sharktopus for example, that came out in 2010, and was almost the logical conclusion of the shark-centric "Mega This" vs. "Colossal That" tract that the genre was following, led by The Asylum when they weren't doing Mockbusters; but it didn't end with Sharktopus, as we know Sharknado came in, and I don't know that, despite Sharknado's popularity waning, the trend overall has waned. Maybe it's possible modern audiences prefer their shark film that way, as over-the-top (Stallone-style) as possible, and filmmakers letting us know at every corner how much they're in on the joke; as opposed what we saw a lot of in the 90s, where we had DTV Jaws ripoffs that had more unintentional cheese, and what intentional cheese it did affect, it played it as straight as possible. For me, I prefer the 90s style, but to each their own.
Finally, this was the best shot I could get of Dolph wrestling the shark. Man that's a thing of beauty, isn't it? It took us 55 movies to get that shot, but we finally made it. And he's really selling it too, which is fantastic. When I saw Dolph on the tin of a shark movie, this was what I wanted, and while it's only for a moment, what a moment it was.
And with that, let's wrap this up. You can stream this on Prime and Tubi, among others. For me, it's only for the Dolph in a shark film novelty factor, so if you're neither a Dolph completist or a shark film completist, I don't think this is worth it beyond that.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4416518
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