Certain films have earned the right to be considered as the ultimate standard in their respective genres. For example, movies about people onboard sinking vessels will forever be compared to "Titanic" or "The Poseidon Adventure." Suspense thrillers about intelligent animals hunting down human prey must match the standards set by the first two "Alien" films. Likewise, any picture dealing with sharks will inevitably face the litmus test of living up to the original "Jaws."
Having to face such a comparison is tough for any new film, but trying to have one release face the scrutiny of meeting or exceeding the cumulative standards set by several films is next to impossible. Unfortunately, that's exactly what Warner Bros. "Deep Blue Sea" attempts to do.
The latest picture from Renny Harlin -- the epic action director responsible for "Cliffhanger," "The Long Kiss Goodnight" and the abysmal "Cutthroat Island" -- this release will surely draw immediate comparisons to the "Jaws" films, but clearly lifts as much source material from any of those sinking boat or aliens in tight quarters pictures.
Instead of playing as an original thriller, this film feels like a recycled collection of scenes and elements from those other movies, especially when certain parts are directly taken from them. Consequently, viewers will more likely be reminded of those superior films instead of getting caught up in this story.
As such, one has to wonder why the filmmakers chose to make this picture. According to the press kit, the reasons are twofold, although that doesn't necessarily ensure that they're sound. While "Jaws" and its sequels pretty much devoured any and all of the "shark terrorizes man in its environment" elements (the beaches or out at sea), none featured the sharks swimming about in flooded hallways, rooms or other indoor structures.
While that's something of a novel idea (for a shark film), it's nothing but a minor variation on the "Alien" films where said creatures did the same, albeit mostly without the water (although one such watery scene in "Aliens" was far more suspenseful than everything in this film combined).
The more obvious reason for making this film was that with today's advanced special effects -- both visual and mechanical -- such sharks could be more realistically represented. That's all fine and dandy, but in doing so Harlin and his special effects team seem to have forgotten which parts of the original "Jaws" were suspenseful and scary (the ones where we didn't see the shark) and which ones weren't or became laughable (where one could see the obviously mechanical "Bruce" the shark).
While this film's effects are decidedly far more superior to those in Steven Spielberg's 1975 classic, they still don't always look real and they certainly can't and don't make the film any more suspenseful on their own.
Thus, we simply have the standard set pieces where people swim, wade or fall into the water and fret that they'll be eaten. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that most of them end up as shark hors d'oeuvres and that's about the only suspense the film offers -- trying to figure out who will be taken and in what order.
Sure, there's some scientific mumbo jumbo about the sharks being genetically altered and thus being faster and smarter than the rest of their kin. Yet, that whole element and especially the characters' comments about the critters' diabolical plans often elicit more laughs and groans than thrills and chills.
I'm sorry, but although I can buy intelligent outer space aliens figuring things out, I just couldn't do the same with sharks smart enough to destroy surveillance cameras (unless they're already becoming stars and thus hate the paparazzi and related gear). Had some earlier scenes shown the vast and believable intelligence of the creatures -- such as displayed by dolphins and certainly beyond the brief bit where they back up upon seeing a spear gun aimed at them -- then that whole bit would be much easier to swallow later in the story.
Simply put, humans are chased and eaten one by one while fleeing through flooding and claustrophobic corridors by ultra intelligent sharks (if they're so smart, one hopes that they took their salaries up front instead of receiving a percentage of the film's back end profits). If you've never seen such a film -- especially the aforementioned original ones from which this one so heavily borrows -- you might find the proceedings exciting. Otherwise, you'll just be counting the number of survivors trying to guestimate how much longer you'll be trapped in the theater.
The characters and the performers who inhabit them don't do much to help matters. Of course, the blame for that lies on the shoulders of screenwriters Duncan Kennedy and Donna Powers & Wayne Powers, for they've written characters that are minimally developed and barely have enough meat on them to entice the sharks, let alone any sympathy from the viewer.
Even so, the mere presence of talented performers such as Samuel L. Jackson ("Pulp Fiction") and Stellan Skarsgård ("Ronin") and the attractive "hard bodies" of Saffron Burrows ("The Loss of Sexual Innocence") and Thomas Jane ("The Thin Red Line") at least keep the film afloat for a while.
That is, until the repeated lifting of material from other films eventually sinks this one into mediocrity. Not only are we "treated" to a "grab my hand and I'll save you scene" from Harlin's own "Cliffhanger," but also plenty of bits lifted from the "Jaws" films -- the sudden sight of a dead body underwater and a ripoff of the demise of the sharks "Jaws" and "Jaws 2" -- just to name a few.
After "Jaws" filled the theaters and cleared the beaches in the summer of 1975, many films have tried to follow in its wake, but few, if any, have been critically or commercially successful. Now you can add "Deep Blue Sea" to that list. Even director Renny Harlin seemed to realize that as he's briefly seen in a cameo leaving the station along with most everyone else before the mayhem ensues. At least he made the right choice there.
Regarding the disc itself, the picture, despite a few mild problems, is quite good, while the audio is outstanding. The supplemental materials far exceed what most discs offer and include some decent extras such as running audio commentary, decent "making of" featurettes and DVD-ROM offerings.
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