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Amazon.co.uk Review
Renny Harlin's first feature since The Long Kiss Goodnight reinvents the rampaging shark movie for the digital age. Echoing Alien and Deep Rising, a typically motley crew is trapped and terrorised in a remote ocean research station incapacitated by storms. Saffron Burrows' scientist has devised a means of using shark brain-tissue to fight Alzheimer's Disease, but it has the unfortunate side effect of increasing by fivefold the intelligence of the station's three test sharks. Once the sharks escape captivity, their captors become prey and Burrows, along with Thomas Jane's diver and corporate sponsor Samuel L. Jackson, are pursued through the station's maze of corridors. LL Cool J also appears as the most unlikely action-movie chef since Steven Seagal in Under Siege, chanting Biblical passages to his pet parrot and choosing the perfect omelette recipe as his message for posterity.As the bizarre premise indicates, this is not a film for those seeking great acting or rich narrative complexities, but it does deliver action and effects in abundance, particularly with the state-of-the-art computer-generated sharks themselves. While they'll never attain the iconic status of Bruce in Steven Spielberg's Jaws (still the granddaddy of all screen sharks), Harlin's swift predators are clever enough to open doors and operate an oven. As the water level rises, Burrows indulges in some Sigourney Weaver-in-Alien-style disrobing, there is one of the great surprise-death scenes, shocking and funny in equal measure, and all concerned keep their tongues firmly in cheek. This DVD version also features commentaries from Harlin and Jackson, deleted scenes, a "making of" feature and a documentary on sharks. --Steve Napleton
Amazon.co.uk Review
Model-actress Saffron Burrows plays the researcher; Thomas Jane pulls double-duty as shark expert and action hunk; Samuel L. Jackson's the corporate sponsor who chooses the worst time for an Aquatica tour; and rapper LL Cool J is nicely cast as Aquatica's cook and comic relief. Michael Rapaport, Jacqueline McKenzie and Stellan Skarsgård round out the cast, most of whom are turned into shark food as the makos turn Aquatica into a floating junkyard. Harlin takes devilish pleasure in providing sudden, unexpected shocks--no small feat in such a derivative thriller--and as a series of action set-pieces, Deep Blue Sea never disappoints. It is inevitable that Burrows should end up in her underwear like Sigourney Weaver in Alien, but even then the movie offers a credible reason for the strip-down; that Deep Blue Sea can be simultaneously ridiculous and sensible is just another one of its shlocky charms. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
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The explanation for what Harlin was thinking is provided on the special features, where it becomes clear the director wanted to make a movie where he could use modern animatronics and computer generated effects to show graphic shark attacks. The idea was to play with bigger and better toys than Steven Spielberg had when he made "Jaws." Of course, doing so sacrifices the cinematic artistry of Spielberg's film, but that is fine because Harlin is not playing in that ballpark.
There is a plot to the film. Scientist Susan McAlester (Saffron Burrows) has come up with a way of using the brain tissue of sharks to concoct a way of fighting Alzheimer's disease. The research is underwritten by Franklin's corporation at a giant deep-sea research station, where we have a shark wrangler (Thomas Jane), a cook who is a self-styled preacher (LL Cool J), and an assortment of entree items in the form of Michael Rapaport, Stellan Skarsgard, Aida Turturro, and Jacqueline McKenzie.
But all that matters is that McAlester is playing Dr. Frankenstein and in making the brains of these sharks bigger, she has also made them smarter. Her motives for doing so are quickly forgotten because these super smart sharks want to kill every human being in the station and that is what this movie is about. I bet you can guess who is actually going to survive the slaughter, but that does not detract from the enjoyment of the film either because the fun with "Deep Blue Sea" is enjoying, if that would be the proper world, the way in which the sharks put the bite on the humans.
So, if you know going into this movie that it is about a bunch of super intelligent mako sharks eating a bunch of human beings, then you can dismiss all of the scientific explanations and exposition as just prologue. You do not have to understand it and you can probably get away with even paying attention to it, because once the shark attacks begin that is all that is going to matter with this film. This is not the thinking person's shark attack film.
"Deep blue sea" is less realistic, because it describes genetically modified sharks, which are indeed smarter than the regular stupid meanies in the ocean. Two are dog smart and one, the biggest, is chimpanzee smart - and maybe even more... Containing some SF stuff it could easily turn bad - but it doesn't. In fact it contains just the right mixture of horror and humour, reality and SF, action and dialogue, etc. There is limited gore, although there is one VERY tough and horribly shocking scene, actually even more shocking that the one in which Robert Shaw is eaten in "Jaws".
All actors did a great job and the personage of black cook (who is an ex-priest!) is particularly impressive and his fight with a giant shark in the partially submerged kitchen is nothing short of epic!
This movie made me spend some really good time in the cinema, although when leaving I was SOOO traumatised that once on the street I had to check from time to time if I am not followed by a shark!
Well worth buying & watching.
Excellent setting, great acting, plot, action scenes & chemistry. Read more
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