So I watched this partly out of a sense of morbid curiosity, and partly because I’d already watched Prey (Cujo, with lions) and Breed (Michelle Rodriguez vs. killer dogs).
There’s no point in telling you that Open Water 2 is bad, which it is. But instead, I’m here to tell you how unintentionally funny it is. Instead of being about two divers left behind, stranded in the middle of the ocean – a primal fear if ever there was one – it’s about six snotty attractive people who go out on a yacht, forget to lower the ladder, and then jump in the water to go swimming.
Yep, that’s the central dilemma: they forgot to lower the ladder, so they can’t get back into the boat!
They spend the rest of the movie bobbing in the water around the yacht. There’s some character development stuff before before one of them bumps his head, another accidentally stabs himself, and a couple of them just swim off to die.
And get this: there aren’t even sharks in the movie? Seriously, WTF?
I wondered about this. The original Open Water is a great, original little lo-fi horror film based on a completely true story.
I highly recommend watching the short “making of” documentary on the Open Water DVD so you can appreciate how lo-fi it really was. They literally filmed it on weekends.
Anyway, what the hell happened with this unnecessary parody of a sequel? Is this what Hollywood is really about-- start with something good and original, then take a giant, steaming dump on it in the name of making a quick buck?
Hollywood does suck, to be sure. But Open Water 2 was a German production. The production notes on their site imply that it was underway as its own movie and the Open Water “brand” was slapped onto it later.
Okay, good point. It’s a story about some annoying people who drown because they forgot to lower the ladder.
Oh, and in addition to screwing up the movie by not putting in sharks, the filmmakers also screw up by only showing nekkid dudes! At one point, the characters take off their bathing suits to try to make a rope (which breaks, natch). But at no time do you see nekkid chicks. Instead, there are a few shots of some dude’s butt while he’s swimming around underwater. What the hell kind of thing to do is that?
I think I’m going to wait for the highlights reel to show up on YouTube, similar to how I successfully avoided Nicholas “Witchpuncher General” Cage’s The Wicker Man.
Can’t you get back on a boat without the ladder? There was no way they could grab onto something? It wasn’t anchored? I’m so confused I almost want to watch it. Almost.
The boat wasn’t anchored, so there was no rope to climb up. The sides were too high for them to reach. The two handholds on the side of the boat weren’t helpful. Their bathing suits were too weak to hold together while the dude tried to climb the bathing suit rope. The American flag dangling from the flag pole on the back ripped when one dude tried to climb up it (America failed them!). The scuba knife one dude had got dropped after he tried to pry open a panel and another dude got pissed that the boat was getting damaged, so they had a scuffle and one of the dudes got stabbed. Another dude hit his head on the propeller and fractured his skull and therefore “[needed] to get to a hospital as soon as possible”. The good-looking dude who claimed he owned the yacht had a breakdown and confessed that he wasn’t really rich and successful. One of the chicks got over her fear of the water after floating around for a few hours. She then survives because the non-rich and successful dude takes the glass from a scuba mask, shoves it into the side of the boat, and wraps his hand around it so it serves as a foothold for the one surviving chick.
Wait, did she help the survivors back onto the boat?
I’m thinking that maybe you can leapfrog off of someone’s shoulders fairly quickly before you make him sink (given various pool-side shanangians) but not sure if it’s applicable there.
She was the only survivor, mentally speaking. Four of them had died by then, and the not-rich and not-successful guy no longer wanted to live, so I’m not sure you could call him a survivor. She jumped in – after lowering the ladder! – and saved him anyway, but I’m sure his character will be haunted for the rest of his life since he’s the one who forgot to lower the ladder before everyone jumped in the water earlier. Doh!
Also, there was a baby left on the boat to add to the dramatic tension. I didn’t mention that part before.
Alan, don’t be silly. Here’s how the movie would have gone if you were right:
“You fool, your forgot to lower the ladder, now we’re all dead.”
“Wait, lemme jump off your shoulders.”
“Ah, it worked. Okay, now let’s get back to being snotty, attractive, and poorly written.”
Roll credits.
Open Water 2 opens with the chilling tagline, “Based on true events”. Meaning that somewhere, at some point, someone forgot to lower a ladder. If nothing else, this movie should serve as a cautionary tale that reminds people to lower the ladder before they jump off the boat. If just one life is saved, Open Water 2 will have been worthwhile. Just as Jaws made people look for sharks before jumping the water, now they’ll check the ladder.
The terribleness of this plot is like some vortex that is sucking me in. I, too, almost want to see this, just for the fact that I think I’d still stare in disbelief, even though Tom just told us all what happens. I can not wait for the networks to pick this one up.
Maybe it’s based on The Sims, where someone knowingly removes the ladder to watch them interact in suffering, and see if the AI ever devises a way to get back into the boat.
I have to admit, I’m really intrigued by the dive knife apparently being repelled by hull, but by scuba mask glass being just the ticket. Surely that’ll show up in a youtube bit.
No no, the diving knife would have worked just fine. But while one guy is using the diving knife to pry a panel off the side of the boat so they can crawl in, another dude gets pissed that he’s damaging the boat (note that the guy who gets pissed is the same guy who forgot to lower the ladder). So they scuffle. While treading water. In the middle of the ocean. Naked, having already used their bathing suits to make a bathing suit rope that broke.
And just like any movie scuffle involving a knife, one of them will get accidentally stabbed. That’s just how movie knife scuffles work.
You don’t understand, Squeaky. Six people take off their bathing suits, half of whom are hot chicks. Yet all you see is a couple of underwater shots of dude butts. That is simply unconscionable.
I didn’t know this movie existed until reading the thread so I had to check IMDB to see the technical details. 95 minutes?? There’s not enough plot to last 30 so is there a lot of hopeless staring or people all yelling at the same time? In movies like this I think I’d want to kill them all myself by the end just to make them stop talking.
