Deep Blue Sea

 

 

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I really enjoyed Deep Blue Sea. You've got a pretty interesting storyline (looking to sharks for a cure for Alzheimer's) that rather quickly turns into quite an impressive little disaster movie (I'm talking explosions, fire, and flooding) with the extra bonus of sharks hunting down those trying to survive the whole ordeal. It's sort of like The Poseidon Adventure -- but with sharks. It gets even better, as the filmmakers throw a couple of significant surprises at the audience along the way. Anyone who says Deep Blue Sea is wholly predictable couldn't possibly have seen the movie. The filmmakers really throw down the gauntlet at the very start, showing the viewer that they aren't working with some tired, old, predictable cookie-cutter script. Throughout it all, the special effects are excellent, and the scenes of the sharks swimming and attacking are very effective (they're animatronic and CGI, but they look real enough to me). It helps that the sharks involved are mako sharks, best known for the fact that their deadly teeth are plainly visible even when their mouths are closed. They may not be the biggest sharks in the ocean, but none are more frightening-looking in the water.

Who knew that the secret to curing Alzheimer's disease lay in the brains of nature's perfect killing machine, the shark? I guess Dr. Susan McCallister (Saffron Burrows) did, having secured the necessary funding to carry out her experiments at an old naval submarine station she renamed Aquatica. Her work consists mainly of sticking a big needle in the heads of her three mako shark subjects (after they've been subdued and sedated by her team members, of course) and drawing out samples of the precious enzyme she is convinced will prove capable of refiring neurons in dead human brain cells. Unfortunately, she meets with some inconvenient setbacks, forcing her to accelerate her research before her funding is cut off. In order to increase the supply of enzymes from the sharks, she resorts to illegal genetic manipulation to increase the sharks' brains by a factor of five. It really should have come as no surprise that the test sharks would grow significantly more intelligent with their bigger brains, but no one seems to have seen it coming. These sharks coordinate their attacks, recognize and react to threats against them, and will stop at nothing to kill their human tormentors and make their escape from the facility. You can't blame the sharks, really -- if some alien creature made a habit of sucking juices out of my brain, I would be out for some nasty revenge, too.

While Dr. McCallister is a bit of a cold fish, and her colleagues do little to stir the viewer's emotions, the film does feature three great characters. Carter Blake (Thomas Jane) is the maverick shark wrangler who becomes the de facto leader of the would-be survivors. Samuel L. Jackson add his strong imprint to the film in the form of Russell Franklin, the financier of this project who chooses the wrong time to visit Aquatica to determine whether or not to pull the plug on the whole thing. Then there's Preacher (LL Cool J), who adds a lot of humanity and a bit of comic relief as the cook -- he's great in this film, and his modernized version of the 23rd Psalm is really something to hear.

If you're a fan of shark movies, I think you have to put Deep Blue Sea on your must-see list. Not only is this a real blockbuster of a thriller, the shark attack scenes are very well done. You're going to see a lot more than just some unfortunate victim disappearing under the water never to return. And to top it all off, this movie gives you one of the most shocking surprise deaths you're likely to see.

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