Rating:
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  Lillian
  
Llewellyn
Deep Blue Sea
USA, 1999
[Renny Harlin]
Saffron Burrows, Thomas Jane, Samuel L. Jackson, Stellan Skarsg�rd, LL Cool J
Action / Horror
I must admit that I�m not the greatest fan of horror movies (I don�t do �jumpy� films as a rule), so the thought of sitting through what I thought would be a Jaws remake left me a little cold. I was soooo wrong. Where Jaws concentrated on the solitary, vengeful great white shark, Deep Blue Sea goes the extra mile. Why have one shark when you can have three, smarter sharks? Under the excellent guidance of action specialist Renny Harlin, a cast of relatively unknown actors (apart from Samuel L. Jackson) have been assembled and what a good job they make of the film.

The homages to other cult classic films go by relatively unnoticed but I listened to the director�s comments on the DVD and all was explained. He paid tribute to
Jaws, obviously. The scene early on in the film where Carter Blake (Jane) pulls a Louisiana licence plate out from the tiger sharks mouth being the actual licence plate that was extracted from the shark�s stomach in the original Jaws, but even more strange, among others, is his tribute to Alien. He explained that when Ridley Scott made Alien, the most well known actor in the production at the time was Tom Skerritt, and he killed him off in the first half of the film! As such the fate of a certain actor megastar is equally sudden and unpleasant.

English rose Saffron Burrows plays Dr Susan McAllister, but her monotone voice soon starts to grate a little. LL Cool J was excellent as Preacher (but watch out for his mysterious, moving injury. His abrasion moves from temple to temple throughout!). Another fine actor that made an early exit was veteran Swede Stellan Skarsg�rd. This was a pity I thought because he could have added depth to the film, instead he was hurtled through a window on a gurney!

The effects were excellent but it�s the animatronic sharks that stole the show for me (apart from seeing Thomas Jane in a wetsuit! I�ll leave you draw your own conclusions as to that). All in all it is a very good movie, slow in parts, but edge of the seat stuff on the whole, but then I�m a wuss, so go figure.
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