UNDER PARIS (2024 - French)

Studio:   Netflix
Director: Xavier Gens
Writer:   Yannick Dahan, Maud Heywang, Xavier Gens, Yael Langman, Olivier Torres, Edouard Duprey, Sebastien Auscher
Producer: Vincent Roget
Stars:    Berenice Bejo, Nassim Lyes, Lea Leviant

Review Score:

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Summary:

Three years after a devastating incident on the ocean, a grieving scientist discovers a deadly shark has mysteriously evolved and now threatens to reproduce in the Seine River.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Research scientist Sophia Assalas leads an ecological expedition to track a supposed mako shark named Lilith in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii. Sophia's team is stunned to discover Lilith grew much larger than expected and is behaving unusually for her presumed species. Sophia is then devastated when her husband Chris and three other divers are shockingly slaughtered by Lilith while trying to examine her underwater.

Three years later, 20-year-old environmental activist Mika tracks down Sophia to inform her that she and her activist team, which had been working off of Sophia's research, surprisingly picked up Lilith's beacon in Paris's Seine River. Sophia initially disbelieves Mika's claim since Lilith should not be able to survive in fresh water. Mika tries investigating the Seine with her girlfriend Ben, but Mika ends up arrested by a unit of river police led by Sgt. Adil Faez.

Mika tries warning Adil, but he doesn't believe her claim of a shark in the river. Meanwhile, Sophia tracks the shark's signal and confirms it could be Lilith. After a homeless man is found dead from apparent shark-related wounds, Adil takes Mika and Sophia to see his unit commander, Angele.

To prove the shark really exists, Sophia joins Adil and several other officers in tracking Lilith's signal. However, fearing they will kill the shark, Mika has Ben disable the beacon to prevent Sophia and the police from locating Lilith, which causes friction between Sophia and Mika. Afterward, Mika sends out a viral video that makes an impassioned plea for her supporters to help return Lilith to the ocean.

Adil discovers the tragic incident from three years ago when he researches Sophia's past. Adil is reminded of his own trauma from when he lost fellow soldiers during a military mission in his own past. Adil later apologizes for mistreating Sophia.

Sophia, Adil, and Angele urge the mayor to shut down the waterways due to the shark. With Paris preparing for an influx of tourism and publicity due to the city hosting an Olympic triathlon event, the mayor refuses.

After tracking the shark to underwater passageways in Paris's catacombs, Ben warns Sophia that Mika is rallying other activists to rescue Lilith despite the danger. Adil forms a team with officers Nils and Markus to secure the catacombs while Sophia joins officers Adama and Leopold on another team intent on safely dispersing Mika's gathering.

Sophia realizes Lilith gave birth and everyone is inadvertently invading her nest. Adil dives into the water to rescue Mika, but he is unable to save her from being mauled. As panic ensues, several other people are killed, including Ben and Leo.

By examining a dead shark recovered from the catacombs, Sophia determines the sharks somehow adapted to fresh water and swam up the Seine to breed because Paris has an ecosystem to support them. Sophia is shocked to also discover Lilith inexplicably gained the ability to reproduce without a male, and her offspring are capable of rapidly reproducing without reaching maturity. Sophia concludes Lilith is actually an entirely new species of shark, and if they cannot stop her, Lilith and her dangerous offspring will reproduce indefinitely.

While Angele leads the protective detail for the mayor, who still insists on continuing with the triathlon's swimming event, Adil brings in bomb experts Poiccard and Berruti to join two teams of river police officers in hunting down the sharks. During the operation, a shark kills Poiccard, which causes his dropped bomb to explode prematurely. Sophia and Adil barely make it back to the extraction boat.

Lilith suddenly upends the rescue boat from below. Sharks then kill the police officers knocked into the water. Sophia and Adil try swimming after Lilith when they realize she is redirecting to go after the triathlon swimmers in the Seine.

As sharks attack unsuspecting swimmers, armed operatives on the shore fire wildly into the water. The gunfire and violent shark movements disturb dormant artillery shells submerged since World War Two. The shells explode in a chain reaction that destroys nearby bridges and creates a massive wave that devastates the surrounding area. Sophia and Adil survive, but so do Lilith's offspring in the newly flooded Paris.

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Review:

Days before "Under Paris" debuted on Netflix in June 2024, legal proceedings threatened to sink the film before it even had a chance to swim on the streamer. Filmmaker Vincent Dietschy alleged that the Xavier Gens-directed movie, which follows an emotionally troubled researcher's efforts to stop a deadly shark from disrupting an Olympic event along the Seine, bore suspicious similarities to his unmade script "Silure," a project reportedly about a carnivorous catfish causing chaos on the same French river.

My question is, how can anyone determine with any degree of certainty which killer shark movie copied from whichever other killer shark movie? They're all ostensibly the same in setup and story, and all of them already owe an unpayable debt to "Jaws" anyway. "Under Paris" contains so many common cliches of the subgenre, I don't see how anyone can narrow any influence down to one single source. End credits cite three people with writing this screenplay, two others as having come up with the original idea, and two more for the adaptation. All seven of those names could be replaced with the titles of identical killer shark movies and I don't think those credits would be any less accurate.

Since killer shark movies tend to seem so repetitive, I don't watch many of them as a rule. Yet even though I don't have an extensive library of similar screenings to compare it to, I still believe "Under Paris" has to be one of the most un-thrilling killer shark movies imaginable, because it stockpiles its scant few engaging scenes for the finale, and fills in the remaining space with uneventful heaps of languid human drama.

Three years after a devastating oceanic excursion took her husband's life, and you know it's been three years because she shortened her hair's length between the flashback prologue and main movie, marine scientist Sophia reluctantly returns to the water when a tagged shark she'd been researching, Lilith, inexplicably resurfaces in Paris. An environmental activist, Mika, found Lilith first. Now she and Sophia must convince local police of the danger Lilith poses before it's too late. Unfortunately, the money-minded mayor must be from Amity, because she has no intention of shutting down Paris for a potential shark attack while the city's river happens to be hosting an Olympic swimming event at the exact same time. What was that about owing a debt to "Jaws?"

Regarding that activist character, "Under Paris" uses her to shove in a laughably pompous monologue where she records an impassioned plea to save the Seine shark as a symbol of standing up against those who endanger animals. The movie immediately proceeds to a montage where men and women from all walks of life watch Mika's viral video with concerned expressions like they're being warned of an impending alien invasion. Some stop on the subway to pensively ponder her words. Others gather over shoulders in public parks to nod together in groups. Sorry, "Under Paris." I know you mean well with this conspicuously shoehorned scene that plays like a '90s Benetton commercial, but there isn't a single person coming into this movie with a desire to become more environmentally conscious about aquatic life.

Viewers do, however, come into the movie anticipating shark-related action, only to come away almost entirely disappointed in that department. After the pre-title attack that kills Sophia's husband, it's another hour before a shark appears onscreen again. In between, the main attraction gets shrunk to a shark-shaped blip on a radar that Sophia and Mika follow around. The rare times we do catch a glimpse of Lilith, her CGI barely looks better than what Syfy puts out on a regular basis with their basic cable creature features.

You tell me if this sounds suspenseful. In one sequence, a police boat intent on taking out the shark with explosives gets stopped by military men assigned to keep the peace on the river. Unable to pass, the police radio for their commander, who is preoccupied with the mayor's protective detail, to intervene. She's initially busy, but after the mayor pauses for a press opportunity, the commander uses the moment to respond to the request. She radios for the blockade to let her officers pass, and they're finally free to do so. Wow. Catch me before such breathtaking thrills knock me off the edge of my seat.

"Under Paris" gains no narrative ground for a majority of its minutes because none of the characters listen to anyone's warnings or advice until they witness something with their own two eyes. Conflict, which is the chief component of drama, therefore comes primarily from human arrogance or stupidity, neither of which are desirable traits to carry characters into earning audience empathy.

"Under Paris" could have been frightfully fun if its Seine-set carnage wasn't heavily restricted until after the 90-minute mark, which is far, far too late to rouse disengaged viewers from their justified slumber. Good luck to the guy who sued the movie for plagiarism. It should be a class-action lawsuit since any number of copycat clunkers could claim they were ripped off. If I were him, I'd let it go, because I wouldn't want anyone to think I had anything to do with this dull movie's existence.

NOTE: The film's French title is "Sous la Seine."

Review Score: 35

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