Open Water 2: Adrift Movie Review

Who knew you could build a movie franchise around people just floating in the ocean?

Open Water 2: Adrift is in no way a sequel to the original Open Water, except that both feature people bobbing helplessly in the water. In the original, the sharks get them (more or less) after one couple's SCUBA charter leaves them behind. In this follow-up, six Gen-X'ers jump off a luxury yacht and into the water... but *d'oh!* no one put the ladder down, so they can't get back aboard. How will they get aboard? Well aside from the obvious (which occurs to them at the very end), they'll try everything from jumping in the water to making ropes out of bikini tops.

To find out what will happen next, just look to the worst tagline I've seen in a movie in years ("Fatigue. Hypothermia. Death."), only that's just part of the story. It takes some creative screenwriting to kill half a dozen people in unique ways, whether that be a scuffle in the water or a stupid ascension from underwater leading to a head bonk on the hull of the boat.

Much of Open Water 2 is a lot like, well, treading water, as we wait for this sextet to get offed one by one while trying to figure out how to raise themselves six feet above the surface of the ocean so they can get back on the boat. Director Hans Horn goes to outrageous lengths to make us interested in their plight, the most egregious being a baby aboard the ship, crying for mom (who's in the water, the only one with a lifejacket). Mom also has a deep fear of the water, and the movie is full of groan-inducing flashbacks to her childhood.

All the work is largely for naught. By the time it's over, we pretty much despise all the clowns bobbing in the water, and there aren't even any sharks to root for this time out. The suspense is weak, but it's considerably better than the film's abiguous ending, which basically lets you choose entirely for yourself how you want things to play out. It's tiresome and confusing, and many an internet discussion board has become clogged with futile discussions of the finale.

What's next for Open Water, which seems to be heading into Saw territory? Six people trapped on a slowly sinking boat with no power? Eight people swallowed by a whale and slowly being digested? Spare us while you still can.

The DVD includes a making-of featurette.