Killer Whale

A love story for the ages. Before we ever get to the atoll, the film burns its early minutes on the death of Maddie's boyfriend, and what a death it is. Faced with a robber who wants a necklace worth a few hundred dollars, he decides the correct move is not to hand it over but to escalate, firing a shotgun so close to Maddie's head that it permanently damages her hearing, then chasing the thief on foot until the man simply runs him over with a truck. It is one of the most unintentionally hilarious deaths in recent memory. Because nothing says love like risking your girlfriend's life and crippling her hearing over a bit of costume jewelry.

Two women, one rock, ninety minutes. From there the movie relocates to a remote Thailand atoll, where Ceto has drifted after the incident with her trainer. We know it is Ceto because of the bent dorsal fin, the film's single accurate detail, a real marker of a whale broken by captivity. And then almost nothing happens. The bulk of the runtime is the two leads sitting on a rock, talking about nothing, waiting for the movie to remember it is supposed to be a thriller.

The twist that sinks it. When a plot finally shows up, it shows up badly. It turns out Maddie's best friend was behind the robbery all along, staged to clear a crushing debt, because obviously the fastest way to erase a mountain of debt is to steal a necklace and a few hundred dollars from a diner. It is a laughable sum for a laughable betrayal. Her punishment is stranger still: she swims for shore, somehow reaches it, then for no reason anyone can explain walks back into the water to die. Pointless and silly, which is the house style by this point.

A climax that insults you. The finale reaches for one cheap flicker of sympathy, asking you to feel for the poor abused whale, and holds it for about a second before Maddie fends off a six ton orca by stabbing it in the eye with, of all things, a cello stand. The cellist kills the whale with a music stand. If that sounds ridiculous and physically impossible, it is because it is. The movie wants the emotional credit for pitying Ceto and the crowd pleaser of killing her in the same breath, and earns neither.

So why only six shakers and not more? Because Killer Whale is not offensively bad, it is lazily bad, and there is a difference. It fails at nearly everything it attempts. The writing, the dialogue, the effects, the soundtrack, all of it flat and cheap, and it leaves you feeling cheated out of the hours you handed over. But it is too tired to make you truly angry. It does nothing well and a great deal poorly, and then it is gone, and you forget it, which may be the most damning thing you can say about a movie.

The verdict: Generic cereal in movie form. A watered down copy of better survival thrillers, assembled with minimum effort and released to fill a shelf. There is no reason to watch it and no reason to remember it.

So, should you take the plunge? Only if you enjoy the taste of cardboard. Otherwise, keep your head above water and skip it.

Pass the salt. 🧂

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