Chum: The Maltese Shark

It's the Maltese Shark, the stuff that nightmares are made of. Ordinarily, sharks shouldn’t reach Malta, but this one does, because of climate change. If you missed that eco-point, don’t worry, because the film will repeat it again and again and again. Oh, by they way, there's also a shark as well as climate change in Jonathan Zuck’s Chum, which opens Friday in theaters.

As a further bonus, Chum opens and closes with ridiculously heavy-handed voiceovers. When Captain Roy lost his beloved to an invasive shark, it left him broken. Jaws’ crusty old Quint looks sociable and gracious in comparison. Nevertheless, Roy saves newlyweds Tina and Tom and their bridal party pals when a combination of a collision with the shark and their own clumsy stupidity scuttles their party boat.

However, the squirrelly skipper has sinister plans for the entitled revelers. They are going to be chum, in his Ahab-worthy scheme to avenge his late wife. That’s what the diving cage is for. Frankly, this was already the worst wedding ever, because Tina and Tim were on the verge of annulling the whole darn thing. They just couldn’t reconcile her work as counsel for a petroleum company with his dilettantism as a wealthy and privileged environmental activist. However, if they can survive this crisis, then maybe these crazy kids (technically fortysomethings) can work out their differences.

Like a black sheep uncle walking into the Church during the exchange of vows, Chum arrives late to shark-wielding serial killer party. Last year’s Dangerous Animals (also distributed by IFC) got there first and did it better. In Sean Byrne’s earlier film, Jai Courtney plays a flamboyantly and entertainingly deranged predator. In contrast, Zuck and co-screenwriter Joe Leone clearly never truly decided whether they wanted to humanize Captain Roy or not, so they have actor Jim Klock randomly vacillate between tragic obsessive and stone-cold maniac, while maintaining the same impassive reserve.

Frankly, Klock is mostly just underwhelming as salty old Roy, which is truly a sin for a horror movie. As some consolation, Alice Eve and Eric Michael Cole have decent chemistry as the troubled newlyweds and they help boost the film’s energy level. Admittedly, Lisa Yaro, Johnny Gaffney, and Sarah Siadat are mildly amusing as the couple’s hot mess friends, but it still doesn’t add up to a great deal.

Seriously, who plans a destination wedding in Malta? Of course, the island nation offers lucrative film production tax credits, which would surely appeal to any bride and groom. To be fair, it provides a cinematic backdrop that might be the film’s most distinctive element. It would be fine to watch if you just wanted to sit on the couch and watch some shark mayhem, but Chum just isn’t good enough to recommend for paying customers when it opens this Friday (6/5) in New York, at the IFC Center.