`Deep Blue Sea' – Sharkfest Provides Moderate Bite by Homer Yen (c) 1999
DBS is a film that follows a formulaic storytelling mechanism that is as familiar to us as the smell of buttered popcorn. And if you've ever seen any of the `Alien' movies, then in many ways, you've already seen this film. The similarities between these films are as abundant as the gory shark attacks that are peppered throughout this film. In `Alien', the setting is a remote research station somewhere in space. Here, the setting is a research station somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. In `Alien' a band of humans must survive to escape an infestation of oozing, flesh-eating creatures. Here, a band of humans must survive to escape several very, very large sharks on the loose. But these are no ordinary sharks. These predators are 25 feet long, and their brains have been altered in a way as to make them amazingly intelligent, agile, and menacing.
The research station is headed by Dr. Susan McAlester (Saffron Burrows), a passionate scientist on the verge of a discovery that could change the face of medicine. As humans age, brain activity slows down considerably. As a result many suffer greatly from degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's. Yet sharks, for some reason, never suffer from these effects. Their brains remain fully functional throughout their life span. Her project is to find a way to extract the protein within the shark's brain responsible for this effect so that humans can take advantage of these benefits too – sort of a super gingko biloba. But she faces some overwhelming obstacles. Funding has been cut which forces her to take shortcuts and to overlook safety precautions. Meanwhile, to extract enough protein, the sharks' brains have been genetically altered. The side effect is that it makes them more ferocious and smarter. And did I mention that these beasts are 25 feet long? It's a recipe for disaster, and when the sharks eventually grow smart enough to fight back, the woeful few crew members on this isolated research station will become nothing more than feeder fish.
I think that when looking at a movie such as this, there are two components that will determine whether something like this can be recommended or not. One is whether we like the hapless souls fighting to stay alive. And for the most part, I liked the quirky cast of characters, especially the macho shark wrangler (Thomas Jane) and a delightful bible-quoting cook (LL Cool J). The shark wrangler is well-suited to stay alive, but his crazy heroics may get him killed. Meanwhile, when a shark enters the cook's partially flooded kitchen, he tries to hide in his own oven. But the shark is smart enough to set the oven to 400 degrees. Perhaps, this shark prefers his dinner cooked. To be sure, many will meet an untimely and unexpected horrible end. But these are two characters that I cared for and wanted to see survive. The other component, of course, is the action sequences. And, for the most part, they are all well done. They involve the familiar scenes where fierce creatures are chasing after humans through narrow passageways while the whole compound around them is slowly about to self-destruct. Meanwhile, the characters all do their best to escape from the jaws of death, do what they can to improvise their way out of seemingly hopeless situations, and work together to make it to freedom.
Grade: B-
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