NO WAY UP - Mark Reviews Movies

No Way Up, RLJE Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 15, 2024

Things quickly go from bad to worse to dull in No Way Up. It's not enough that a plane crashes somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, and it's not enough that a group of survivors are trapped in the submerged tail end of that plane within a gradually flooding pocket of air. No, this situation isn't dire enough, apparently, so screenwriter Andy Mayson tosses some sharks into the mix.

This is just a gimmick atop a gimmick atop another gimmick, but the primary downfall of this very silly premise isn't simply the naked contrivance of it all. It's that Mayson didn't consider the logistics of this setup. With nowhere for these characters to go and nothing for them to do, where's the story for this ridiculous idea supposed to come from?

We end up watching a group of seven characters—whose numbers dwindle, of course, as the movie moves forward—stuck in a small space for an extended period of time. There's nowhere for them to go in the back end of the plane, since only a few rows of seats, a lavatory, and the galley aren't underwater. Once the sharks are established, it's not as if these characters are going get into the water, either, because these aren't just any sharks. They're movie sharks, which are always hungry and attack anything in their path and are seemingly limitless in number, since one just appears whenever it's time for another character to be killed.

If we accept how unlikely the basic setup and how unbelievable the added complication of the sharks are, there's still the basic fact that Mayson has written his characters and plot into a literal corner here. It's difficult enough to try accepting the outlandish premise, especially since director Claudio Fäh plays the material in a straight-faced manner that only emphasizes how ludicrous the whole thing is. The particulars of the setup ensure that there's no possibility or room for any kind of fun or suspense within it, too.

There's definitely none of that to found within these characters, who are either bland or, in one notable case, actively irritating. Ava (Sophie McIntosh) is preparing for a vacation with her boyfriend Jed (Jeremias Amoore) and his best friend Kyle (Will Attenborough). As the daughter of the governor of California, Ava is also joined by her long-time personal bodyguard Brandon (Colm Meaney). He's likely the only person on the plane with the wherewithal to come up with some ideas and do something in a life-or-death situation, so you get one guess as to how long he lasts in this story.

The other survivors will be a flight attendant named Danilo (Manuel Pacific), a young girl named Rosa (Grace Nettle), and her grandmother Mardy (Phyllis Logan), a retired Army nurse who treats the occasional—and unconvincingly executed—wounds suffered by a character or two. Kyle's arm, for example, is broken during the hard water landing, and one might think the shock and pain would diminish his penchant for making bad jokes and being a bigoted jerk toward the flight attendant. He's arguably worse after the disaster, if only because the random attempts at humor stick out so much in the situation and within the earnest tone with which it's oddly approached.

On a slightly positive note, the plane crash sequence is scary, but a filmmaker has to be pretty incompetent to mess up something so inherently terrifying. There are several memorable and frightening scenes of plane disasters in the movies, and this one takes its cues from those, while existing as a crash sequence, too.

Once that's finished and the specific dilemma facing the survivors is established, there's really not much else to say about the story. The characters stand or sit or lie around in the back of the submerged plane, decide to wait for rescue, and watch as the occasional shark drags away one of their own or jumps out of the water to take a good bite out of another. These sharks come out of nowhere somehow, as well, and despite how big they are, they can sneak up on the group or apparently hide among the seats of the narrow fuselage for a jump-scare later. After a lot of unearned melodrama, Ava comes up with a plan to escape, and any audience members with a tendency to hold their breath along with a character on screen are strongly advised not to attempt that here.

No Way Up provides a dead-end of drama and suspense. Making matters worse, it's also a very dumb movie that takes itself far too seriously.

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