The original Open Water wasn’t exactly begging for a sequel but, as is the case in direct-to-video movies, that really doesn’t matter. Many movies have been dubbed as sequels even if their story-lines have absolutely nothing to do with the originals’. Open Water 2: Adrift is one of those movies. All that it shares with the original, aside from the title, is that it finds a way to dump the cast into the ocean with seemingly no hope of escape and claims to be “based on true events.”
Six former high school friends board a yacht owned by Dan (Eric Dane) and set off to sail, swim, and party for a weekend. One of the party-goers, Amy (Susan May Pratt) thinks it’s a good idea to bring along her new baby for a weekend that promises sex, drinking, and, the possibility of drowning. This act foreshadows the mindset that will be called upon for survival later in the movie.
Once the yacht reaches a particularly isolated spot far away from shore, everyone decides to go swimming. That is, everyone except Amy, who is afraid of the water. Dan thinks it will be a good idea to throw Amy into the water to help her get over her aqua-phobia. So, he picks her up and jumps over the side of the yacht, forgetting to lower the ladder before he does so. As a result, all six friends are then stranded in the water and Amy’s baby is left alone on board the yacht.
For the rest of the movie, the six young, attractive, and very stupid friends try to come up with various methods to get back onto the yacht. All of them either fail or backfire, usually with disastrous results.
Since it’s a straight-to-DVD feature, I wasn’t expecting much from Open Water 2. I was hoping for a lot more than it ultimately delivers however. The main problem is that the script makes the characters mindbogglingly dumb. It’s not immediately apparent how long these six people are in the water before things begin to go wrong but, even if it was 15 minutes, they should have been able to come up with a way out before it all goes bad. It wouldn’t have made a great movie but if a script is going to ask me to sit through an hour and a half of stupidity before someone manages to rub two brain cells together there better be a good reason. Either that or there better be a nice payoff at the end to justify the stupidity. There is no such payoff in Open Water 2. None.
0.5 out of 5.0 stars
Buy on Amazon!
