Deep Blue Sea Review
By Joe Lozito
"Sea" Doesn't Hold Water
It's nice to know that "Jaws" can be secure in its place in the Pantheon of great shark movies. "Deep Blue Sea" is a forgettable, water-logged shark thriller which attempts to be nothing more than that and delivers even less. The film starts out with little potential for character development and actually manages to underachieve.
The pouty but thoroughly non-threatening Saffron Burrows plays beautiful Dr. Susan McAlester (wait'll you see the excuse for getting her in her underwear), one of a group of scientists that have decided that it might be a good idea to lock themselves in an underwater lab and genetically mutate sharks with already foul dispositions for the purposes of reactivating human brain cells. With a setup like this, the film better do a good job of keeping the plot moving. For a while it does, hurdling such plot holes as how the sharks manage to learn the layout of the entire facility having only a small cage in which to move. At one point Thomas Jane's indestructible shark wrangler, Carter Blake, dares to point out that the sharks only like to eat others sharks. Um, Carter, in case you hadn't noticed, they seem to have a taste for people too. And metal doors and fire extinguishers and anything else to float in front of them.
The originality of "Deep Blue Sea", which manages to rip-off not only "Jaws" but "Jaws 2", seems to end with choosing Mako sharks to exploit rather than Great Whites. Other than that, the plot, story and pacing are as predictable as the tides.
Director Renny Harlin, who since "Cliffhanger" has not shown much of a flair for anything, seems to have an affinity for ripping humans in half with gory detail. And, while the film's cartoonish violence and cardboard characters make this a fully unmoving experience, the film is almost sadistic in its proud, leering shots of the carnage.
Thankfully, like the stopmotion animation in the Ray Harryhausen films of the 50s and 60s, the computer generated brutality in "Sea" is easily distinguishable from the real thing. It may look like a shark is chomping on one of our would-be heroes, but in the close-ups following the initial attack, it's clearly CGI foolery.
It is worth noting, however, that the sharks used in the film (aside from CGIs, real-life shark footage and animatronic sharks were used) are some of the best in any shark-related film. That's not much of a compliment, but don't forget this is a film that woefully misuses the likes of Samuel L. Jackson (between "Phantom Menace" and this, has he given up on any real roles?), LL Cool J as a religious, hip-hop loving cook named "Preacher" and Stellan Skarsgaard, who manages to die one of the most inconceivable, humiliating and laughable deaths as any ever put on film. Happily, since it's not even clear what his character's name was, his demise, much like this film, lacks any real bite.
