Deep Rising Written & Directed by Stephen Sommers. Produced by Laurence Mark. Starring Trent Williams, Famke Janssen, Djimon Hounsou, Anthony Heald, Kevin J. O'Conner, Wes Studi, Derreck O'Conner & Jason Flemming.

"At 4,000 feet they tram harmlessly, unseen by human eyes.
At 20,000 feet they have been known to eat full grown sharks.
When those at 40,000 feet rise from the deep, its�."

"Far below the south China sea lies an underwater mountain range with canyons deep enough to hide the Himalayas, deeper than any man or machine has ever explored."

........So announce the ominous opening credits of Stephen Sommers' Deep Rising. The film, like other sub-aquatic monster movies such as Leviathan, The Abyss and Lords of the Deep, tap into the same primal fear of what may lie, unknown to mankind, at the bottom of the earth's oceans. It has been said that we known more about outer space than we do about the very bottom of the earths deepest oceans where the pressure is to much for current technology to explore, and remember that water covers 5/6th's of the earth's surface.
........The underwater world holds fear for us because it is so close and yet so alien. Myths such as the Loch Ness monster and the lost city of Atlantis highlight man's fascination with the mysteries of the underwater world, and also man's fear that it may one day rise up and devour us. Lovecraft understood this when he penned tales like 'Shadows Over Innsmouth', 'Dagon', 'The Tomb' and perhaps most of all 'The Call of Cthulhu'. The later tale, regarded by many as his greatest work, story a tale fundamentally similar in premise to Deep Rising, that in the unexplored depths of the sea lies a colossal malevolent life form who will rise form the seabed to lay waste to mankind.
........However, to compare a mythos deity like Great Cthulhu to the large squid-like creature in Deep Rising is misleading. The monster of the film is not a deity rising to fulfil an age-old prophecy "when the stars are right", but a creature of nature rather than super-nature. When the films protagonists encounter the creature, there is a biologist on hand to surmise that the creature is merely a particularly large specimen of a commonly much smaller sea predator usually found in shallower waters. I feel that this disappointing rationalisation of the appearance of the creature lessens the fear generated by the being, this is merely mans continuing struggle against nature that has been going on for millennia.
........This loses the film Lovecraft Brownie-points in my eyes. The 'deep' that is rising is clearly not the 'deep ones' of Lovecraftian infamy but we are still left with an above average action-horror, made with a Hollywood budget that supplies just enough thrills and spills to make it entertaining.
........The advertising declared it to be "A head-on collision between Titanic and Alien." Well, it's got a boat and it's got a monster. It does not have anything like the impact or the acting of Alien, but in the bright side it doesn't have the Irish-jiggery and Celine Dionness of Titanic which is something to be thankful for. The boat in question is a supposedly the largest, most expensive, extravagant and luxurious cruise ship ever built and the film goes to some lengths to emphasis the richness of its passengers whom we see revelling in bacchanalian excess before being slowly digested by the impressive CGI monster. Dawn of the Dead-style social commentary with capitalism being turned on its head as the rich are consumed by the tentacled ghost of Marxism? I won't even go there.
........Trent Williams is moderately likable as the male lead, who is wry, witty and level headed like Indiana Jones without the whip. Pointy-nosed Famke Janssen plays the high-class pickpocket who proves as equally able to handle a gun as she is to look good in a slinky red dress. Janssen's character reminded me of Mila Jovavich's character in the more recent Resident Evil (2002), and comparisons don't end with Jovavish's choice of dress. Both films follow the now-established 'Survival horror' format that began life as a video game genre, and indeed Deep Rising plays very much like a video game of this genre. The protagonists run through numerous corridors, guns aloft, and progress up through the 'levels' of the ship while negotiating obstacles and completing simple tasks (finds the key to the door, collect the required engine part) with the ultimate aim of defeating the big 'boss' at the end. And of course indulging in simple sub-games along the way (ride the jet-ski, swim through the submerged passage).
........This game/film is non-interactive apart from the privilege of guessing which of the minor characters will survive to the end. Deep Rising suffers from something of a surfeit of minor characters, from crew of two ships, passengers, the criminal who pick the wrong day to attempt a ship-hijack and a gang of thugs who just scream 'cannon-fodder' (one of whom is irritating mockney Jason Flemyng, looking completely out of place in this film).
........At least the multitude of characters leaves room for a multitude of entertaining deaths, and I must say that many of them are surprisingly gory for a 15-rated film (when the half-digested person is disgorged still alive and screaming, now that is really quite revolting) and prove that the BBFC are willing to be lenient with the gore these days providing directors are restrained in the sex and cuss-words department.
........All in all, this makes for quite good untaxing entertainment. The dialogue is occasionally cringe-worthy and the constant wisecracks become tiresome but the pace of the film is kept high so you hardly notice that the cast must have run up and down the same stretch of half-submerged corridor a dozen times. The film lacks the brooding sense of dread to really appeal to the Lovecraft fan, it is an actioner at heart, but to call it a total no-brainer would be a little harsh. A 'very-little-brainer' might be more nearer the mark.