Deep Rising, starring Treat Williams 1/2 star out of 4
Deep Rising is one of those unoriginal, insipid movies that,when you watch it, inspires delusions that you, too, can write a movie.
A tip: If you try, be assured someone will visit you and break your hands before you are finished with the first act.
Heck, a chimp could have written Deep Rising. The movie is more an amalgram of cliches and sequences lifted from other films. (The hero even gets to say, "I got a bad feeling about this.")
The story revolves around a charter-boat captain, a team of modern-day pirates, a luxury liner and some giant creepy crawlies that suck all the liquid out of people and "excrete their skeletal remains," as one character so aptly puts it.
Treat Williams (remember when he was a serious actor) plays Finnigan, the charter-boat skipper who will take any fare without any questions.
Williams, and the rest of the cast, run through their paces, yelling their lines, most of which consist of variations of, "We gotta get outta here."
Kevin J. O'Connor as Williams' engineer plays a variation on Bill Paxton's whiny Marine in Aliens, except he is more shrill and obnoxious - as well as the comedy r relief.
The special effects look cheap. As movie technology improves, it is getting easier and easier to separate bad computer effects from good, and these are at the low end of the scale.
And, to try to create suspense, that old dodge of showing the beasties in shadows and quick-cut edits is employed. Another tiresome cliche.
An overblown, over-orchestrated score by the usually dependable Jerry Goldsmith adds to the 90-plus minutes of discomfort.
Deep Rising is a movie that should be in the bargain bins and video stores - and probably will be within the next six months.
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, Ind. He can be reached by e-mail at bloom@journal-courier.com
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