{"id":54168,"date":"2026-07-29T00:51:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T04:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=54168"},"modified":"2026-07-29T00:54:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T04:54:19","slug":"above-below-2026-shark-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/29\/above-below-2026-shark-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Above and Below (2026) [Shark Week]\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

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While on vacation partying, a group of friends decides to make things interesting by going swimming with sharks. Once on the boat, others board and things take a turn.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Written by\u00a0Anthony Steven Giordano and directed by Jesse V. Johnson, Above\u00a0& Below is a competent shark film that does not\u00a0veer from the beaten\u00a0path. For some shark film fans, this will be great as they know what to expect and love it. For others, it will feel a bit too familiar and\u00a0won’t\u00a0make them want to rush to get it on physical media (if physical media happens). In general, the story is written\u00a0decently,\u00a0but it lacks novelty, so while\u00a0it’s\u00a0entertaining, most folks will be able to predict what comes next and the ending. The direction here works with the script but given what\u00a0we’ve\u00a0seen from Johnson in the past, he\u00a0can do much better. His touch is clearly seen when gun play and fights come on screen, but the film feels a bit generic.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The cast here is mostly as expected. Antonio Banderas is fun, the man has charisma on screen, so he can work it no matter what. Louis Mandylor comes off very Louis\u00a0Mandylor;\u00a0his performance feels\u00a0similar to\u00a0what we have seen from him a few times in recent years.\u00a0Timothy V. Murphy is good here, shines a few times. The rest of cast feels interchangeable, none of them doing better than the others, the young men all come off a bit douchey or disinterested, giving\u00a0nonchalance\u00a0too much room at times and being a bit too extra at others, while not exactly\u00a0standing out from one another. The leading ladies, the only two women in this story are basic and not particularly interesting either.\u00a0They feel a bit shallow and also interchangeable.\u00a0Out of the cast,\u00a0it’s\u00a0easy to see who will survive and who will not from a few minutes of their performances. Are they bad? No. Are they memorable? Also\u00a0no.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The sharks, well, the sharks are not exactly all that menacing. They are there, they\u00a0don’t\u00a0feel like they really want to kill people, just rattle them a bit. They come off more pet\u00a0sharks\u00a0giving a show than scary ocean\u00a0predators,\u00a0and that is a sin in a film like this.\u00a0Maybe there\u00a0are too many shark films out there, but as it is, these sharks need a bit more bite.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The film does look good with cinematography by\u00a0Maxime\u00a0Alexandre,\u00a0who makes the most of the beautiful locations and the ocean. His work makes the boat ride almost appealing. The editing by Matthew Lorentz works well with what is there, giving the viewer a chance to see\u00a0what’s\u00a0going on and keeping the pace moving fast enough.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Above & Below is a decent, albeit familiar, shark thriller with bad guys both in and out of the water to punch things up a bit. The story feels like\u00a0it’s\u00a0too familiar\u00a0with a premise a bit too close to Into the Deep from last year. Still, the film delivers some goods and is easy to watch, so\u00a0it’s\u00a0a good fit for a fun\u00a0Shark\u00a0Week film night.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While on vacation partying, a group of friends decides to make things interesting by going swimming with sharks. Once on the boat, others board and things take a turn.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[58,477,2964,1087],"class_list":["post-54168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-action","tag-horror","tag-shark-week","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54168"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54170,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54168\/revisions\/54170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}