Deep Rising (1998)
Director: Stephen Sommers Cast: Treat Williams, Famke Janssen, Anthony Heald, Kevin J. O'Connor, Djimon Hounsou Rated R: Language, violence
by Nathaniel R. Atcheson (nate@pyramid.net)
When I first saw the trailer for Deep Rising, I rolled my eyes because I could see, just from the quick scenes depicted in the preview, that the film would be a genuinely thorough Alien rip-off with some nifty special effects. I expected a boring, ho-hum film showcasing bad acting and silly characters who go into contrived and non-scary situations only to serve as cannon fodder to a giant tentacled monster.
But it only took me two minutes to realize that writer/director Stephen Sommers knows exactly what he's doing. Here is a film that consciously rips off most of its ancestors (from Alien all the way up to recent siblings like Anaconda); what makes it such a blast, why I enjoyed every bit of it, is the simple fact that it makes fun of itself and its own genre. The acting is great, the characters are interesting (better than cannon fodder), the humor is fresh and funnier than in most comedies, the violence is ridiculously graphic and gory, and the film is just plain fun.
Treat Williams plays John Finnegan, a boat-operator who, in the beginning of the film, is taking a group of shady individuals (led by Wes Studi) to do something that he knows nothing about (his business motto is "If the cash is there, we do not care"). When John's engine man Joey (Kevin J. O'Connor) goes snooping around and finds a bunch of missiles, the bad guys make it clear that they are actually en route to sink a cruise ship. As it turns out, the owner of the cruise ship, Nigel Carlton (Anthony Heald), isn't making enough money, so they're going to loot the ship and sink it so he can live off the insurance.
Sounds easy enough, until some kind of enormous mutant creature--with seemingly endless numbers of tentacles all of infinite length--attacks the cruise ship and destroys everyone on board. At this point, it is up to our heroes to save the day, not only against the human bad guys, but from the water bad guys as well.
Sure, we've seen all this before. You'll find very few of the scare tactics in this film new. Some of the scenes will even remind you of films you might have just seen (the jet ski sequences are just like the ones in Hard Rain). This isn't to say that the film is totally useless as a horror flick--Sommers dumps the violence and gore on the audience. The action, too, is really exciting. Scenes towards the end of the film in which the tentacles come racing down corridors at high speeds are just a few of the numerous fun-filled moments that Deep Rising has to offer. Nor does the film feel low-budget and campy--the creature, though clearly digital, looks professional; and the cruise liner, shot only at dark and in the rain (not every film can look like Titanic) is at least convincing for the few seconds that we get to see it. Overall, the visual presentation of Deep Rising is pretty standard, but good nonetheless.
But that's not why I like this movie. The heart of my enjoyment lies in the characters, who are surprisingly well-drawn and interesting. Williams is terrific in the main role; he has a kind of passive aggressive attitude towards everything, but he's so likable and appealing that I was rooting for him from the start. O'Connor, however, has all the funniest lines in the film. (He turns to someone, wheezing, and says, "Can you, like, *get* asthma?") Not only is he funny, but he's well-written as a character, which is unheard of in a film like this.
The bad guys too, though there are a few too many (most of them truly are cannon fodder), are all at least given some sort of identity, whether it be different accents or sexual habits. Several of the actors stand out among the crowd, including Anthony Heald, Wes Studi, Famke Janssen (who plays an interesting pick-pocket thief), and Djimon Hounsou (who some viewers might remember as Cinque in Amistad).
I just love totally silly movies like this. Sommers is a sharp director--he wanted to make a creature flick, but instead of trying to go serious and disturbing, he made this hilarious and wild film that looks at itself and laughs. I couldn't have imagined laughing at a film in which I see a room full of thousands of mutilated humans, corridors splattered with guts and blood and skin, and live people with only half-heads screaming post-mortem, but now I've seen one. Deep Rising isn't for the faint of heart, but it is for those who are tired of the same old horror film garbage.
>From 0-10: 7 Grade: B
Visit FILM PSYCHOSIS at http://www.pyramid.net/natesmovies
Nathaniel R. Atcheson
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews