AmateurMovieReviews.com

By Simon Woodhouse

Are there any original stories left to tell? Maybe not, but there are certainly lots of variations on a theme that still have life left in them. Thing is, movie makers have got to tread carefully. If you're not setting your film up as a straight remake, but the basic premise reminds everyone of something that's come before, you stand to be accused of making a rip off.

As far as most people are concerned, there's only one film about sharks. Do I really need to speak its name? Ok, I will. Jaws is the be-all and end-all of shark movies. It may have spawned a whole host of lousy sequels, but the original really can't be beaten when it comes to big, bad fish eating people like they're going out of fashion. Any film maker brave enough to tackle the same sort of subject, had better be ready for some harsh criticism if their product seems like it's borrowing too heavily from its masterful predecessor.

The poster for Deep Blue Sea (DBS) contains a simple tag line - 'Bigger. Smarter. Faster. Meaner.' Bigger, smarter, faster, meaner than what? The picture on the poster features an enormous shark about to bite a woman's head off. Perhaps the tag line is referring to this, i.e. the shark is bigger, faster etc. than she is. But I can't helping think that's it's the film makers way of trying to compare their movie to Jaws. So is DBS all of those things when lined up against Steven Spielberg's fishy epic? Yes (with the exception of smarter), but it certainly isn't better.

No shark film would be complete without 'shark-vision', a camera angle that lets us see the world from the shark's point of view. DBS has this, and uses it in the very first scene. Reminiscent of teen slasher movies, the film starts with a group of beautiful young people enjoying some smooching action on a yacht out in the middle of nowhere. They've hardly had time to get down to business when a large, hungry shark shows up and tries to eat them. Luckily the film's hero, Carter Blake (Thomas Jane), arrives in the nick of time and saves them. Which is just as well, because the toothy fish was no ordinary shark. I won't bore you with the technical details, but somewhere out there in the deep blue sea is an experimental research lab, where a group of boffins are trying to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease by experimenting on shark brains (no, I'm not making this up). The said experiments are making the sharks very big and very smart. So smart that one of them escaped. It's never explained how it escaped, but maybe it tunneled its way out.

Apart from the opening scene, the rest of the movie takes place in and around the research lab, which is a converted submarine base. This is where the boffins are doing their stuff with the sharks. After a bit of nonsense sudo science, we get down to the nitty-gritty - the sharks go crazy-ape-bonkers and start trying to eat the scientists. All this is taking place in the middle of a hurricane, which means the scientists can't be rescued. Just to add to their woes, the research center starts to sink. If you haven't seen the film, you can play a fun little game while you're watching it - have a go at guessing which of the irritating cast members will be the next to get chomped. When the chomping does happen, it's pretty spectacular. Though there may be a lot of things wrong with DBS, the shark effects aren't one of them. Things have come a long way since Jaws, with its laughable rubber shark. The beasties in DBS really do look like the real thing. But unfortunately the actors don't.

Besides Thomas Jane as the muscle-bound hero (I think there must have been a clause in his contract that stopped him from being allowed to wear a shirt with sleeves), there are plenty of other stereotypes for the fishes to feed on. Saffron Burrows plays the super-serious Dr. Susan McAlester, someone who never stops frowning. Samuel L. Jackson is her boss, Russell Franklin (watch out for his chomping scene, it's ace). Then there's a whole bunch of lesser 'stars', who I can't be bothered to list. They all have names and faces, but as far as I'm concerned, they could simply be listed as fish bait #1, fish bait #2, fish bait #3 and so on.

As the film rolls on, and the lab sinks deeper and deeper, the sharks get in and start swimming along the half flooded corridors. In the meantime, our heroes are trying to find a way to the surface. This means each scene turns into a set piece that involves someone getting chomped. Eventually there's almost no one left, and it's time for the grand finale. I won't spoil the 'excitement', but if you thought the end of Jaws was a bit far-fetched, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Though it may not sound like it, I do enjoy watching this film. It easily falls into the 'it's so bad it's good' category. There's nothing more amusing that watching actors being all serious and scientist-like, whilst at the same time talking absolute drivel. It might not have been intended as a comedy, but DBS is hysterical. If you bear this in mind, and watch it with a few friends, you'll probably enjoy it as much as I do.