Right, a little background about me in case you’re not aware: I love shark movies, and I love anything to do with air disasters and plane crashes.
Yes, yes, I know that’s quite morbid but we all have to have a hobby, right?
So you can imagine my delight when I stumbled across the film “No Way Up” (currently free to view in the UK on Amazon Prime (affiliate link)) which is a film about a plane that crashes in the shark infested waters in the pacific – we’re onto a winner, right?
Unfortunately not.
But before I get into it, let’s take a look at the plot and who’s who.
What’s “No Way Up” About?
The film opens with Brandon (the ever cranky Colm Meaney: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Under Siege, The Commitments) waking from a nightmare where a woman was floating dead in the water.
Brandon is the bodyguard assigned to protect Ava (Sophie McIntosh: Brave New World) while she travels to Cabo with her boyfriend Jed (Jeremias Amoore: Zero Chill) and his best friend Kyle (Will Attenborough: Dunkirk).
Why does Ava need a bodyguard? Who knows! Her Dad is the Governor of (I think) California but no mention of any threats to her are made. Perhaps Brandon is there to protect her from Kyle being a complete arsehat? Your guess is as good as mine.
At the airport we’re also introduced to 10-year-old Rosa (Grace Nettle: War Of The Worlds (2021 TV Series)) and her grandparents Mardy (the wonderful Phyllis Logan: Downton Abbey, Lovejoy) and Hank (James Carroll Jordan: Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Murder She Wrote) and our final main character flight attendant Danilo (Manuel Pacific: Ride, Terminator: Dark Fate).
As the flight gets underway, Kyle is showing us what an actual douche canoe he is by being extremely homophobic to Danilo (because of course Danilo’s gay as no male flight attendant in history has ever been straight) but Brandon’s at the front of the plane so can’t use his ex-Navy Seal skills to shut Kyle up.
At this point we know all the characters we’re supposedly going to be caring about as they’re the only ones shown on screen bar another flight attendant’s brief chat with Danilo.
Now I don’t know if this was a pacing thing or if they just couldn’t afford extras who could actually speak but it just seemed a bit odd to me. In films like the Airport series (1970-1979) or The Poseidon Adventure (1972) you get to know a few of the ancillary characters so you at least feel something for them when they’re inevitably done away with, with No Way Up we get none of that.
So now we have the characters set up it’s time for the action to begin, and it’s certainly something folks!
Nothing in this article is a spoiler, you can pretty much see what happens in the entire film in the trailer, which is certainly a choice.
Shortly into the flight a loud bang is heard and the pilot tells the passengers they’ll be fine – it was only a bird strike! At what looks like 20,000 feet! No problem!
Within a matter of seconds, the engine that was struck by the bird is on fire, explodes and then the resulting shrapnel tears into the plane’s fuselage. This causes a small hole to appear which then rips into a massive gaping tear around 10 feet wide by 6 feet high causing explosive decompression, sucking out luggage, passengers, crew and even seats.
Here’s where I have my first issue: The engine explodes causing shrapnel. That’s fine, we’ve seen that happen before in accidents (see Qantas Flight 32 for example – see, I told you I like airplane disasters). You know what happened there? Damage to the wing, fuel system and landing gear. You know what didn’t happen? Getting a 10 foot wide hole in the side of the plane.
Miraculously, our accident flight somehow has no damage to the wing at all – it’s a miracle (if you ignore the whacking great hole of course).
And my second issue: They’re flying above the clouds which means they’re relatively high up so the interior of the cabin’s pressure is greater than that of the exterior of the plane. This is fine.
When the decompression occurs, anything not strapped down would naturally be drawn towards the hole. This is also fine.
BUT some poor guy gets sucked down the entire length of the plane like he’s weightless grabbing on to headrests to try and stop himself, and he’s followed by several other passengers AND a row of seats. This is not so fine.
We then cut to the female flight attendant who is walking down the aisle towards the hole behind all the people being sucked out, using the same headrests to stay upright. This is not fine at all.
How does that even make sense? You’re either sucked along the length of the plane or you can walk, it can’t be both.
And don’t get me started about the seats being ripped out. The only way this can happen is if the floor of the plane was severely damaged – which it wasn’t as in this case the explosion was on the side of the plane, not under the floor (see United Airlines Flight 811). Plus if the floor was damaged what happens next would be impossible.
Anyway, on with the accident.
The plane starts to career out of control and begins to bank sharply to one side. Jed has decided that is is all a bit too much and begins to act like a big baby, Ava and Kyle are looking slightly worried and Danilo? Well he looks like he’s taking a nap.
After a few seconds, the plane hits the water. Somehow it’s managed to level itself off and the pilots pull a Sully and land the plane intact in the middle of the sea (see US Airways Flight 1549). The remaining crew and passengers are extremely lucky as landing a plane on open water without breaking up is nigh on impossible as you have to get the plane’s position to the waves just right, find the perfect speed and put the plane down at the perfect angle (see Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 – I bet you didn’t think you were going to learn this much about plane crashes in a film review, did you?)
As the plane hits the water – with what must be tremendous force because the seats pancake forward into the row in front of it crushing passengers (again, can’t happen – see my earlier point about seats) – it somehow stays in one piece and hangs suspended in the water.
Here’s my fourth* issue: The plane has a massive great chunk missing from the side of it, the structural integrity of the fuselage is now greatly reduced. Are you trying to tell me that the pilots were able to land, at speed, without the plane splitting where the hole is? Really? (Insert eye roll here) .
* The third issue was the seats – keep up
Just when we think the passengers have caught a lucky break and they’ll just float on the water like Sully’s plane (which I will remind you didn’t have a flipping great tear in the side of it) we finally get some actual physics and water starts to rush in through the side of the plane.
And then we lose all knowledge of physics again.
As the plane fills with water from the hole at the front, it begins to sink nose first towards the sea floor and finally settles at an angle that’s conveniently shallow enough to be able to stand up in, but steep enough to somehow create an air pocket at the rear of the plane.
Now this is when I began to completely lose it. If the hole in the plane, the seats being sucked out and the plane hitting the water intact wasn’t enough make believe for one film, they somehow think that there will be enough air pressure to create an air pocket that’s at least 5 rows and a galley deep.
Even ChatGPT agreed that this was pretty much impossible (and I think the script might have actually been written by ChatGPT… This is the writer, Andy Mayson’s, first credited writing gig and he’s the CEO of the production company so read into what you will….)
Now we’re not sure how deep the plane is (or what the exact model of plane this is) but given that a Boeing 737-800 and an Airbus A320 (the two most popular short haul aeroplanes) are around an average of 38 metres in length, we know that the plane is at least 50 metres under the water as otherwise the tail would be near the surface which it clearly isn’t (yes, that was geeky but you wanted to know too, right?)
So at that depth the pressure outside the plane is at 6 atmospheres – there’s no way that an air pocket could exist as pressure alone would cause water to be forced into the plane just like decompression forced the passengers out – see what I did there?!
But we’re suspending disbelief, and the laws of nature, and common sense by the looks of it so let’s just assume this is a thing and ignore the reality.
After the crash, it looks like everyone at the front of the plane is dead but no! Ex-navy seal Brandon has survived because of course he has because he’s played by Colm Frickin’ Meaney! And with him he’s managed to rescue two other passengers.
Now it’s a fight against (finally) science as their air is running out, the water is slowly pouring in and cracks are beginning to appear in the fuselage.
Will they survive?
Well, watch the trailer and that gives you a clue.
Oh, you’ll notice I didn’t mention sharks.
Why is that?
Because they play such a minor role they shouldn’t have really been a thing and yet they marketed the entire film around mother f**kin’ sharks on a mother f***kin’ plane – just look at the poster!
Sure, they chomp a couple of people but I really expected the sharks to play a bigger role in this, especially towards the end of the film when they’re trying to make their escape.
So, that’s the plot of No Way Up, let’s take a look at what I thought.
The Good
Some of the effects are pretty good for a low budget film. The ending sequence is really well done and I found an interesting piece on how the managed to create it using a technique called “dry-for-wet” virtual production. You can read about it here and there’s a video showing how they performed the scene – spoiler alert for the end of the movie though.
Colm Meaney and Phyllis Logan act their socks off in this as well. I was kind of expecting a “phone it in” performance for a pay check kind of deal but they really elevate what could have otherwise been some emotionally empty scenes.
The rest of the cast is better than expected and the acting is pretty good given the material they had to work with.
Manuel Pacific plays Danilo with great charm which really made me root for his character to make it, whereas Jeremias Amoore and Will Attenborough really didn’t have anything to sink their teeth into apart from a little light screaming which is a shame as I thought the two bounced off each other quite well.
And while the character of Ava isn’t really given much emotional depth, when she is afforded a little time to emote, Sophie McIntosh does a really good turn and it’s a shame we don’t get to see more of her acting skills.
The Bad
It’s not often you’ll hear me say this but I actually think the film is a little bit too short.
I don’t know how much ended up on the cutting room floor but it would have been nice to have had some character development.
Sure, we find out that Ava’s mother drowned (oh, the irony!) but we don’t really know how it happened or how it affected Ava. Is she afraid of the water because of this tragedy? Would have been a nice plot twist. How did that affect Brandon’s relationship with Ava as he wasn’t there to save her mum? Could have been some added tension. But we get none of that.
We also don’t really get to know Jed and Kyle and as a result they’re rather cardboard cut-out figures placed more as a filler than anything of substance. How did Ava and Jed meet? Why is Kyle such a dick? Because we don’t get to know them I really didn’t care what happened to them.
Also: This film needed a lot more sharks. I mean a lot, lot.
There could have been this hole cat and mouse game of the survivors trying to fend off the sharks and the sharks being super-sneaky about how they’re trying to get into the plane – or even showing intelligence in trying to force the people out by increasing the flooding (think Deep Blue Sea (1999)).
What we got was nothing like what the trailer hinted at and that was not only disappointing but a huge missed opportunity.
The Ugly
Oh dear, where do I start?
You’ve already seen my thoughts on the physics of this film – it’s virtually impossible for any of this to happen in the real world and while I did try to go along with it, every time there was another glaring error it took me back out of the film and made me enjoy it less, taking a while to get back into it again.
As I said earlier, the script sounds like it was written by AI. Plot points and beats are shoehorned in at seemingly random moments, no one has a backstory, and there’s no character progression. Sure, Kyle becomes a little less homophobic towards Danilo but there’s no sense of self-sacrifice that would truly redeem him, he just makes a less-snarky-than usual comment.
And I don’t know whether it was a problem with the directing (The director is Claudio Fäh who seems to be more of a TV than film director which might explain some issues) or the way that they paced the film in the edit but it was so predictable it was ridiculous.
There was one scene where an obvious jump scare was being set up and I kid you not, I was able to count down from five and then say “Boom!” at the exact moment the jump happened.
I then burst into hysterical laughter and had to pause the movie for 5 minutes. Honestly, I think that was the best part.
Now that might be because I am some sort of genius or it might be because this film telegraphs its intentions so massively they might as well walk around with one of those big foam fingers pointing to what’s coming next, and as a result unless you’ve never seen a horror movie in your life there’s nothing shocking or surprising to be found.
Final Thoughts
No Way Up is an odd film.
It’s not so bad it’s good and it’s not “bad” bad, it’s just kind of “meh”.
It knows what it wants to do and it does it adequately enough to tick all the boxes but every now and again there’s a glimpse of what it could have been – some great acting, a hint of a storyline that should have been explored, a nice effects shot that should have been used more – it just doesn’t quite make it all the way there.
And don’t get me started on the lack of sharks.
Which is a shame as I really wanted to like this movie but unlike several passengers and a row of airplane seats I just wasn’t blown away by it.
Watch this film if you want to watch something mindless and know nothing about physics, or watch this film if you know basic physics but feel the urge to rage about something.
No Way Up is currently free to view in the UK on Amazon Prime (affiliate link) at the time of writing this review.
