How Fast Can You Swim?

DEEP BLUE SEA
(Warner Bros.)
Starring:  Saffron Burrows, Thomas Jane, LL Cool J, Samuel L. Jackson,
Jacqueline McKenzie, Michael Rapaport, Stellan Skarsgaard.
Screenplay:  Duncan Kennedy and Donna Powers & Wayne Powers.
Producers:  Akiva Goldsman, Tony Ludwig and Alan Riche.
Director:  Renny Harlin.
MPAA Rating:  R (violence, profanity, adult themes)
Running Time:  105 minutes.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
     Steven Spielberg has said for years that one of the keys to the
success of JAWS was technical failure.  The mechanical shark
affectionately nicknamed "Bruce" wasn't necessarily supposed to be a
shadowy figure menacing the protagonists from the fringes of the frame --
he just didn't work right.  Bruce's frequent unannounced work stoppages
forced Spielberg to get more creative.  The rest is a milestone in
cinematic suspense history, further proof that real terror comes not from
what we see, but from what we're afraid we're going to see.
     It would be easy enough to scoff at DEEP BLUE SEA as a gloss on JAWS
that just doesn't "get it," but that wouldn't be entirely fair.  JAWS,
whether intentionally or made necessary by technical limitations, was a
suspense film; DEEP BLUE SEA is an old-fashioned monster movie.  The
killer predators here are experimental subjects in a floating research
facility off the coast of Baja California, enhanced by Dr. Susan McAlester
(Saffron Burrows) to promote her research into a shark-based cure for
degenerative brain disease.  An unfortunate side effect of her research is
that the brains of her test sharks are now large enough to permit higher
cognitive functions, inspiring such fishy thoughts as "I guess it's about
time to destroy the facility and kill all the humans."
     Thus begins a person-by-person chomp-fest through a cast that
includes (not necessarily in order of consumption) Samuel L. Jackson (as a
pharmaceutical company bigwig), Thomas Jane (as a shark diver with a
checkered past), LL Cool J (as a religiously devout chef), Michael
Rapaport (as the chief engineer) and Stellan Skarsgaard (as a vaguely
eccentric research scientist).  The genre conventions are all terribly
conventional, but director Renny Harlin stages them with methodical
effectiveness.  There are a few solid scares and one magnificently
effective shock, the kind that leaves an audience giggling nervously for
several seconds.  There's even some cautionary nonsense about scientific
hubris, in the fine tradition of FRANKENSTEIN or THE FLY.  It's what
monster movies are supposed to do, and DEEP BLUE SEA uses its trio of
toothy villains to deliver the requisite armrest-gripping.
     If only anyone involved with the script had taken a second to go
beyond the merely requisite.  DEEP BLUE SEA is full of half-completed
characters doing generally stupid things.  Granted, the monster movie as
we know it would not exist without people doing generally stupid things,
but it's still frustrating to put up with them saying stupid things at the
same time.  The film gets even sloppier by positing not merely that the
sharks have developed advanced intelligence, but that they have apparently
studied physics and engineering, and had access to detailed schematic
diagrams of the facility.  There's only so far a film can involve you when
it treats the viewers as though they're dumb and treats the characters as
though they're chum.
     DEEP BLUE SEA is, of course, following in some mighty big footsteps
in the killer shark milieu, which makes it even more surprising that there
are so many echoes of JAWS and its sequels.  The opening sequence involves
a night attack on some frivolous teenagers; one shark is dispatched with a
bite on an electric cable (JAWS 2); another ends up raining down in
bite-sized chunks.  It's almost as though Harlin and company _want_ the
film to be compared to JAWS, as though they think they've one-upped the
ultimate shark film.  In the press notes, Harlin says of JAWS, "It's 25
years later, and audiences, accustomed to animatronics and
computer-generated imagery, need to see more."  And perhaps he's right,
but that still only makes DEEP BLUE SEA a technically-proficient monster
movie.  As character-driven suspense, it bites off much more than it can
chew.
     On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 fins de siecle: 5.
                   Visit Scott Renshaw's Screening Room
                    http://www.inconnect.com/~renshaw/
                                   ***
             Subscribe to receive new reviews directly by email!
 See the Screening Room for details, or reply to this message with subject
                               "Subscribe".