Deep Blue Sea Directed by Renny Harlin running time : about a hundred minutes
There are two kinds of people out there. There are the kinds who enjoy movies about thinking sharks that terrorize a demographic slice of post-Baywatch American society and those who do not. I happen to. The term "popcorn movie" is a great term and it fitfully describes DBS. The set-up is pretty blah and the movie doesn't really get going until Samuel L. Jackson arrives at the shark base--think the island that the dinosaurs lived on in Jurassic Park only this is a concrete island with titanium still cages that go all the way down to the ocean floor, and behind those cages--we'll get to that in a second.
So Samuel Jackson arrives there and he meets the shark team--our cast of characters that (I don't remember any of the characters names) are going to duke it out with the Makos. Now the shark team is assembled to do something very scientific, they're running tests on the sharks and in the course of doing that, they have made the sharks super smart. And the theme of the film which probably Jurassic Park spear headed, or you know flagellated upon everyone, is that of "man's complete and utter idiocy in thinking he can control nature." There it was Disney Dinosaur land, here in DBS the doctors Dr. Cleavage, Dr. Spritely, Dr. German accent and Dr. Generation-X are all convinced that they can control the sharks no problem, no problem.
Well surprise, surprise they can't. A tropical storm blows in and wreaks havoc (think Jurassic Shark now) and the sharks get loose and the audience gets to play the baiting game, trying to figure out who will end up alive at the end of the film and who will just end up. Because there are three very smart and very angry Makos on the loose. The humans try and get to safety with the sharks close on their tale, and here the script features some nice twists and a handful of "gosh I wouldn't want to die that way" scenes.
The directing is right on, and Renny Harlin does some really cool things such as this one point where everyone is trapped in this huge elevator shaft and the water is filling up from below and there is a huge fireball looming from above. I was like "hey man the hot and the cold." The technological and goretastic thrills are there and the performances are strong (especially Ice Cube as a charming cook) but and here is where I'm forced to hearken back to JAWS (blah, blah right). That dorsal fin in Jaws is one of the coolest cinematic treats of all time. Seeing it course through the water--really something, really something. Here in DBS you get the whole shark thanks to computer graphic doo-dads and it looks real, down to the pearly whites--but I found myself missing that dorsal fin zipping through Martha's Vineyard like it did. Hey Hollywood! Quit showing me what everything looks like, let me imagine the scary stuff (i.e. that witch project thing I keep hearing so much about).
The design of the film is that everyone is trapped underwater in this concrete viewing thing and they have to get back to the surface and the sharks are zipping through the corridors, and that makes the whole picture dark and clautrophobic in a way that it couldn't really help but being. The next day I'm still caught thinking about when one of the sharks "disarms" Dr. _____ I mean that was a great moment, but the movie also made me want to go see JAWS again, just for that lyrical rush the movie had of being out on the water, just cruising with a mean old dorsal fin cruising behind you.
reviewed by Ben Zaretsky
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