The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Cage Dive marks the third edition to the Open Water franchise; this franchise revolves around characters who find themselves fighting for survival in shark infested waters. The third film does not fall too far from this theme: it revolves around three people who find themselves stranded in shark infested waters, after a shark cage dive goes wrong.

The film stars Joel Hogan, Meghan Peta Hill and Josh Potthoff, and is directed by Gerald Rascionato. Other than the obvious trying-not-to-get-eaten-by-sharks plot, the film possesses a love triangle subplot: Meghan (Meghan Peta Hill), Jeff’s (Joel Hogan) girlfriend, is having an affair with his brother Josh (Josh Potthoff). All three actors were not exceptional, with their performances being mediocre at best. Meghan Peta Hill’s performance was over the top; Joel Hogan’s performance was largely cliché; and Josh Potthoff’s performance was simply flat.

The film is almost entirely presented via the found footage concept: it starts out with a group of divers finding a camera that belongs to the aforementioned three protagonists. The camera’s footage is then played to the audience, along with a testimony from the siblings’ cousin, and news reports about the cage dive gone wrong.

While the concept of found footage has been largely overused, in this film the found footage concept works well. It works well because young people on vacation would typically and commonly want to film most of their moves, especially something as dangerous and exciting as a shark cage dive. Even more realistically, this group of friends was intending to use the taped stunt, as their audition tape for an extreme reality TV show. Hence, the film takes the time to set up a logical context and premise for the found footage concept. 

This film markets itself as a shark movie, with the sharks supposedly being the main suspense, action, and thrill factor in the feature. It was, consequently, a bit surprising to find that the film actually only contained a few shots of sharks in its entire 80 minutes. 

All in all, there is absolutely nothing that sets this film apart from all other mediocre shark film (and there are plenty). The acting is less than average; the concept of found footage, while well-grounded in the plot’s events, is no cinematographic masterpiece; and, for a shark movie, there should have been a lot more shots of, guess what, SHARKS!

Not worth a ticket to the movies and most definitely not worth the 80 minutes of time we spent watching it. It’s just not worth it.