The idea is new for an Egyptian movie, but it lacks almost every sense of the original idea. The movie should have kept you interested until the very end, but this one ended before you knew it. I like the directing and the under water shots. In fact, they actually dived in for the movie. But the ending just makes no sense. There are an enormous number of mistakes that just can't be ignored. They rushed into the scenes to cut short the movie and spent almost half of the movie on pointless scenes. I would not recommend it..
27 Reviews
I'll always watch a shark film, but this one was questionable.
mrpoe-3738130 March 2023
Warning: Spoilers
I do love a shark film. It's my go-to genre. This one caught my interest thanks to the use of makos, instead of great whites. Something I enjoyed with Deep Blue Sea too.
However, this film was rather confusing in the ways it was pieced together. It was jumbled and rather poorly edited. I mean no disrespect, but come on. You have to admit, this was pretty iffy for a shark movie.
As stated, the film is very broken up and it's hard to keep up with the story. I swear that a character died twice, being eaten first and then showing up again later, only to be eaten again.
Plus the ending needs fixing. It was like someone grab some puzzle pieces and shoved them into the wrong spots. This film has the potential to be a really good B+ grade movie, but it needs to be pieced properly.
That's really about it.
Watch it if you want.
It's your call.
However, this film was rather confusing in the ways it was pieced together. It was jumbled and rather poorly edited. I mean no disrespect, but come on. You have to admit, this was pretty iffy for a shark movie.
As stated, the film is very broken up and it's hard to keep up with the story. I swear that a character died twice, being eaten first and then showing up again later, only to be eaten again.
Plus the ending needs fixing. It was like someone grab some puzzle pieces and shoved them into the wrong spots. This film has the potential to be a really good B+ grade movie, but it needs to be pieced properly.
That's really about it.
Watch it if you want.
It's your call.
I'm not really sure why it was called 'Mako.'
el720 September 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Because the shark serves as more of a psychopomp figure than the actual villain of this piece. 'Trapped In The Bad Vibes Shipwreck' would have been a more apt title if they wanted to name this after the antagonist of the movie. The movie's premise does come from the haunting true story of the sinking of the Salem Express, and the persistent rumors that the shipwreck site is cursed. The beginning of the film introduces us to Rana, a documentary filmmaker who is up for a major award. It seems as if she won, but if you watched the 2017 Oscars you have a bad feeling what's coming when you see the emcee stumble over her name. She's in the middle of her acceptance speech when they take it back and reveal the real winner is... drumroll... Sharif, who also happens to be Rana's husband. I call shenanigans on that one, but this film glosses past it because the male characters in this movie are all either sacrificial saviors or irredeemable caricatures, no in-between, and Sharif is slated to become the former before the movie ends. So, spoiler I guess. Anyway, Rana becomes driven to win the next awards season and is willing to try any crazy idea to get the attention of the panel of judges, and in the interest of that she welcomes a crazy idea from a new member of her team, a mysterious woman named Gharam. You get the sense that Gharam has an ulterior motive throughout the vetting process to visit this shipwreck, and you'd be right. She has a tragic backstory directly connected to the shipwreck. The day the team sets sail to dive the wreck, a fishing boat is nearby chumming the water for sport fish and they attract sharks. Specifically, they attract the large, fast species called the Mako, and these are the sharks that begin to harass the divers as soon as they get near the wreck, which they subsequently have to hide within. The shark effects are quite good, and the claustrophobic underwater set is also well utilized, but unfortunately the members of the documentary dive team are all dressed nearly identically with masks that reveal only half of their faces, so it's hard to tell them apart from one another to keep track of what is happening to whom. Only Gharam is easily recognizable due to her tattooed fingers. Up on the boat, drama is also happening between one team member left behind due to sudden illness, and a criminal shipmate ready to use up his second chance. The film ends with a survivor lamenting the cost of getting the story and the award. As far as shark movies go, this is definitely not the worst I've ever seen, the shark just wasn't in enough of it.
The worst film I ever seen
essam-salah12 September 2021
Waste of time
shahyasadek21 January 2022
Underwater Shoutfest
prolead23 December 2022
I really wanted to give this movie a chance but it was disappointing to say the least. I don't know much about these actors, they are probably famous in Egypt but their ham acting and unnecessary overacting just ruins the movie. This is the same problem with Bollywood actors. They try to bring their stardom out and ham out everything and make it unbearable to watch. The calmest actors in this movie are the marine life. These people should never get into the water again and they deserve to be eaten by the sharks. I never once felt sorry for them. Stupid people deserve stupid things. Netflix is garbage as always nothing new about that.
confused
fluffset22 December 2022
Warning: Spoilers
They are confused, whether they want to make story about documentary team issue, marriage issue, ship mystery issue or creature feature? They have a lot of idea in their mind but they cant connected it well. The poster looks like a typical killer shark movie, but they want to add a lot of stuff to create drama and everything it became kind of confusing. Looks like the shark is only some uninteresting subplot. They should stick to one direction, if you want to make movie about killer shark, just focus to killer shark from the start. This egyptian film maker need to watch a ton of creature feature movie from hollywood to learn something. Its like watching a soap opera drama where 2 woman want the same man, but suddenly shark attack them all, the shark are just side character. Like during filming, they thought "Why dont we add some shark?".
Worst movie I've seen in 2022
vincerome27 December 2022
Where do I start? The premise at the beginning seemed ok and then the film devolved into a drama less about the shark and more about everyone going crazy or having ulterior motives. While these actors are known in their country, many of us have no idea who they are. So the idea to obscure their faces throughout most of the movie made it even more confusing. I couldn't tell who was the main female character at times. There were pointless scenes that could've been cut out. The motives of some characters were muddled and confusing. The writing and situations poorly thought out. The escape was nonsensical. This movie is an embarrassment to the actors.
Worth nothing really
shereenseyam21 September 2021
I don't know what this is really. No acting. No story line. Nothing whatsoever. What were they thinking? I don't know. It's a failure for me by all means. First time to hold my mobile while watching a movie in theatre. I did not do it even in Deadpool.
Where are the sharks?
olivierlarouche721 February 2023
A word of caution if you choose to watch this movie, prepare to be bored for about 44 minutes ... and then confused for the remainder of the experience. For a movie called Mako, I would guestimate that sharks have less than 3 minutes of total screen time. The plot also becomes increasingly difficult to follow once the film crew goes underwater: first, the characters are nearly unidentifiable with their scuba gears, and second, actual events are interspersed with scenes that represent hallucinations induced by depth narcosis. On the plus side though, the underwater cinematography is fairly impressive, all things considered.
Love it but.....
alirizk-405588 September 2021
A Good First try !
karim_hisham3 September 2021
Worst movie I ever seen
gohary-0054527 February 2022
A WASTE OF TIME AND VERY BAD
mdamatti-8717411 February 2022
It's really a good start for Egyptians as a horror/thriller shark movie, but it has no story and no scenario! The actors are absolutely awesome in other movies/series, what the hell they were thinking of when they have written the script!!!! The ending makes no sense and we didn't know what happened to the ones who did not dive! Very bad and I don't recommend it.👎🏽
Ludicrous movie, but does have some good Egyptian cultural narrative.
fakemendel22 December 2022
I'll start this off by saying that I'm a Divemaster.
I have dived the Salem Express twice now, and it's a very easy tourist dive, lying on its side (not on it's keel like in the movie), in always warm, relatively shallow clear water. Any diver would be thrilled to see a shark around the wreck, and larger sharks in the northern Red Sea are virtually unheard of.
If you dive, you might derive entertainment from the absolutely ludicrous diving practices and inaccurate technical references. It makes "47 Meters Down" look like a tech divers manual in comparison. It's so bad, it's good, me and my diver girlfriend were in stitches.
The acting is lamentable, with the air of a hammy low-budget sitcom and scripts that have only had a single cursory read-through.
However, what does come through is a reflection of the myriad social issues that are facing young adults trying to find freedom in many theocratical and conservative middle-eastern and north african societies.
While all- Egyptian, the principally young cast are desparately trying to portray themselves as highly westernised, wealthy, secular and progressive hipsters. Not accurate for much of Egypt in my experience.
The more capable and senior female characters have the unenviable task of trying to manage suffocatingly arrogant, selfish and incompetent Egyptian manchildren, who are historically used to being in charge regardless of their actual abilities, the only truly accurate depiction of Egypt in this movie.
I have dived the Salem Express twice now, and it's a very easy tourist dive, lying on its side (not on it's keel like in the movie), in always warm, relatively shallow clear water. Any diver would be thrilled to see a shark around the wreck, and larger sharks in the northern Red Sea are virtually unheard of.
If you dive, you might derive entertainment from the absolutely ludicrous diving practices and inaccurate technical references. It makes "47 Meters Down" look like a tech divers manual in comparison. It's so bad, it's good, me and my diver girlfriend were in stitches.
The acting is lamentable, with the air of a hammy low-budget sitcom and scripts that have only had a single cursory read-through.
However, what does come through is a reflection of the myriad social issues that are facing young adults trying to find freedom in many theocratical and conservative middle-eastern and north african societies.
While all- Egyptian, the principally young cast are desparately trying to portray themselves as highly westernised, wealthy, secular and progressive hipsters. Not accurate for much of Egypt in my experience.
The more capable and senior female characters have the unenviable task of trying to manage suffocatingly arrogant, selfish and incompetent Egyptian manchildren, who are historically used to being in charge regardless of their actual abilities, the only truly accurate depiction of Egypt in this movie.
Wait what?
gpqxzv28 April 2023
I was asking my gf every 2 mins what happened!! She didn't know either.
The movie makes no sense, there's no plot and the "ending" if you can even call it that, is the worst ending I've seen in my life, and I've seen a lot of movies.
The acting was terrible, background music was awful, the music was in certain scenes overpowering the actors' voice and extremely loud.
They spent a third of the movie trying to show us how much she wanted the prize instead of developing the characters properly.
The characters had incomplete stories, especially those that didn't dive and don't even get me started on the underwater scenes.
I'm so angry I wasted my time on this "movie".
Worst 90 mins ever!
The movie makes no sense, there's no plot and the "ending" if you can even call it that, is the worst ending I've seen in my life, and I've seen a lot of movies.
The acting was terrible, background music was awful, the music was in certain scenes overpowering the actors' voice and extremely loud.
They spent a third of the movie trying to show us how much she wanted the prize instead of developing the characters properly.
The characters had incomplete stories, especially those that didn't dive and don't even get me started on the underwater scenes.
I'm so angry I wasted my time on this "movie".
Worst 90 mins ever!
REAL S*** FEST
hedrummond23 December 2022
For those who who waxed glowingly.........Whar are you? Frigging nutz? I tried to get through this thing but found it to be the most reprehensible piece of cinematography I have ever seen. I would have watched the whole thing, hoeever, I only have one life to live and would rather spend the time rewatching a really good shark fest like "Jaws". At least I can be sure there will be something to admire. The sad thing about having to write this review is that kt feels like I'm being punished further solely because I did not like this rotting carcass of a fish circus, but then one could assjme watching it would have been punishment enougl.
It's shame on diving
untermnor22 January 2022
It's shame on diving, non of diving shots make any sense, could be better if the cast was real divers which is certified and also with full mask speciality, I don't know what this is really. No acting. No story line. Nothing whatsoever. What were they thinking? I don't know. It's a failure for me by all means.
One of the worst shark movies I've seen
SuperNaturalGrl8714 January 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Where to begin? There are about 3 or 4 plots going on and none of them are any good. The beginning was actually somewhat interesting but kept showing shots fishermen chunking the water and either trying to catch big fish or a shark. Spoiler they die. Another spoiler/annoyance is that they keep using great white sharks. You see a Mako once during the fishing scene alongside a great white. Mako's travel all over the oceans typically staying in warm waters where great whites typically stay in colder waters and are rarely spotted in the Red Sea. On top of all that Makos don't attack or kill humans despite being aggressive. 9 total deaths have been recorded since practically ancient times (ok not that long ago but like 1500s according to google).
The biggest offensive to not knowing ANYTHING about sharks? About 50 some minutes in they show a shark attempt to attack Graham but couldn't get far being in the window of a ship. It doesn't get her and she swims away. Somehow in the next shot the shark backs out and is swimming free. What's wrong with this? SHARKS CANT SWIM BACKWARDS!!!! You can even see one not swim backwards in The Little Mermaid when Ariel traps it lol.
Those are just the facts that they already got wrong that p*** me off. If you love sharks and shark related movies don't watch this awful movie. If you love movies with several dramatic unnecessary plot points with a shark thrown in the mix for no reason then you'll love this train wreck.
I also intentionally wanted to watch a foreign movie with subtitles and for literally no reason they switch to speaking in English-I'm not talking about the award show or a word here and there. They legitimately start speaking English for no reason and with no explanation.
These actors as divers are not believable, all of their panicking would've made them use up their air much faster. Apparently they're also "trapped" in this boat, not sure how with broken windows all around them. They have the two brothers dependent on each other but then suddenly the one says you have to find your own way out bye. What kind of awful dialogue is that? Nobody even those scared, would ever say that especially to their own brother. And really how does that help your crew by telling someone they each have to find a way out.
We don't even find out what happened when they got back on the ship with the 5th or so side story. All of this was just awful.
The biggest offensive to not knowing ANYTHING about sharks? About 50 some minutes in they show a shark attempt to attack Graham but couldn't get far being in the window of a ship. It doesn't get her and she swims away. Somehow in the next shot the shark backs out and is swimming free. What's wrong with this? SHARKS CANT SWIM BACKWARDS!!!! You can even see one not swim backwards in The Little Mermaid when Ariel traps it lol.
Those are just the facts that they already got wrong that p*** me off. If you love sharks and shark related movies don't watch this awful movie. If you love movies with several dramatic unnecessary plot points with a shark thrown in the mix for no reason then you'll love this train wreck.
I also intentionally wanted to watch a foreign movie with subtitles and for literally no reason they switch to speaking in English-I'm not talking about the award show or a word here and there. They legitimately start speaking English for no reason and with no explanation.
These actors as divers are not believable, all of their panicking would've made them use up their air much faster. Apparently they're also "trapped" in this boat, not sure how with broken windows all around them. They have the two brothers dependent on each other but then suddenly the one says you have to find your own way out bye. What kind of awful dialogue is that? Nobody even those scared, would ever say that especially to their own brother. And really how does that help your crew by telling someone they each have to find a way out.
We don't even find out what happened when they got back on the ship with the 5th or so side story. All of this was just awful.
Spent most of the time waiting for it to end
siegemistressfx10 May 2023
The premise had potential. But it's like the writer forgot the story about 15 minutes in and it just became tedious. I couldn't even finish watching it. If you're going to have a giant Shark on your poster - at LEAST feature a giant Shark....
The sound quality was poor, due to cheap mics and actors that lacked confidence. There was plenty of room to develop the filmmaking couples relationship-story. So many missed opportunities.
I work in film, and to see Netflix allow this sort of crap on their platform really brings their overall quality down. Extremely disappointing. Feels like they just ran with the 1st draft without showing it to any professionals....it shows too.
Giving one star because the DP was the only person who did their job.
The sound quality was poor, due to cheap mics and actors that lacked confidence. There was plenty of room to develop the filmmaking couples relationship-story. So many missed opportunities.
I work in film, and to see Netflix allow this sort of crap on their platform really brings their overall quality down. Extremely disappointing. Feels like they just ran with the 1st draft without showing it to any professionals....it shows too.
Giving one star because the DP was the only person who did their job.
Great movie
sarahamdy-627598 September 2021
Sink Fnb with all due respect to the word art
hossammota10 February 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Mako movie is an artistic mess with my respect for the word art, in a sweet story you can make a nice movie, but unfortunately there is no movie in one positive other than the ending, which was tired in more than the same movie 😂
Every time he comes in the movie, a scene in which there is suspense, the director does what he does, he goes out to answer what happens above in the boat, which literally is you. If all the scenes of the boat are paralyzed after he dropped it, except for two scenes, you will find that there is no effect at all on the events,
Come stay for the end of the movie: I was going to close the movie from its text in the first place, but I said maybe in a sweet ending, for example, the end came and I literally regretted every mega-shot with this movie because the end was that they had booked the studio for half an hour and finished, and they said to the owner of the studio, OK for ten minutes Also, we can get to the end quickly.
More ducks than sharks
Randy_Freewheeler26 July 2023
I still have no idea what this 'movie' was meant to be about after struggling though this muddled, incoherent mess.
Is it meant to be a shark movie, or a soap opera, or a romantic drama?
Because it contains elements of all three, but still manages to fail at being any of these things. It doesn't really have a plot, or seem to know what it's meant to be.
It's also hard to follow because all the female leads look the same: they all have long black hair, and collagen pumped lips that give them the appearance of a sullen female Daffy Duck (or look like they were stung by a swarm of bees).
You'll have a hard time telling them apart, with those identical, artificial, features and their wooden expressions. None of them can act, and they have zero charisma or charm. Just looking at them could give you severe depression.
There really are more ducks than sharks on display.
And the male actors are miscast as well: even the 'good' guys look like they should have been cast as villains as they all have somewhat brutal features. They look rather like angry potatoes, or Neanderthals with learning difficulties.
One big bearded lunk would have been better cast as a daddy bear in a prison movie. He was that unsettling.
This is one of those movies that is so bad that you can't even watch it for the giggles (which is what I'd hoped and expected).
Instead you will probably feel angry towards Netflix for having the nerve to suggest it to you - i know I did. Thanks for ruining my night.
Is it meant to be a shark movie, or a soap opera, or a romantic drama?
Because it contains elements of all three, but still manages to fail at being any of these things. It doesn't really have a plot, or seem to know what it's meant to be.
It's also hard to follow because all the female leads look the same: they all have long black hair, and collagen pumped lips that give them the appearance of a sullen female Daffy Duck (or look like they were stung by a swarm of bees).
You'll have a hard time telling them apart, with those identical, artificial, features and their wooden expressions. None of them can act, and they have zero charisma or charm. Just looking at them could give you severe depression.
There really are more ducks than sharks on display.
And the male actors are miscast as well: even the 'good' guys look like they should have been cast as villains as they all have somewhat brutal features. They look rather like angry potatoes, or Neanderthals with learning difficulties.
One big bearded lunk would have been better cast as a daddy bear in a prison movie. He was that unsettling.
This is one of those movies that is so bad that you can't even watch it for the giggles (which is what I'd hoped and expected).
Instead you will probably feel angry towards Netflix for having the nerve to suggest it to you - i know I did. Thanks for ruining my night.
Hyper unrealistic
dodgedavid-603854 January 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Firstly, it's called Mako but this mutant shark in the movie is bigger than any mako on the planet and looks larger than most great whites as well. Not a diver myself but this group of morons would really have died probably a dozen times before the shark even showed up. The storyline was confused and very unrealistic, like who acts like any of these people? Back to the shark though, that's my biggest gripe....everything they did in the water was wrong, too fast, too slow, too big. These people genuinely ducked down behind a wall so the shark 10m away didn't know they were there. Seemed like the shark was really an afterthought and they through in a bunch of nonsense about award shows and celebrity bs.
The Best Movie in 2021
goldengfx8 September 2021
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