Deep Blue Sea

Opening a mere few weeks after the aforementioned Lake Placid, along came Deep Blue Sea to give some new teeth to the beleaguered shark movie left largely adrift with the last notable film being Jaws: The Revenge 12 years earlier. Yet, here was a film that very much knows what it is and wears it's B-Movie roots proudly, while coyly hiding some rather memorable surprises among it's bloody shark mayhem. 

Dr. Susan McAlester (played by Saffron Burrows) has been working on cutting edge experiments to try and find a cure for Alzheimer's Disease in a very unlikely place: the brain fluid of Mako sharks. When one of her sharks gets loose from her isolated lab in the middle of the ocean and attacks a nearby sailboat, corporate investor Russell Franklin (played by Samuel L. Jackson) flies out to personally observe the facility and process to determine whether or not to continue with the project. The lab is running on a Skeleton crew for the weekend and aside from Susan we also have Shark wrangler Carter Blake (played by Thomas Jane), fellow scientists Janice Higgins (played by Jacqueline McKenzie) and Jim Whitlock (played by Stellan Skarsgard, technician Tom Scoggins (played by Michael Rappaport) and resident cook known as Preacher (played by LL Cool J). There are three Mako sharks at the facility and Russell is impressed and terrified at the large beasts. When a demonstration of the extraction of the brain fluid goes terribly wrong, Susan begrudingly admits she took a shortcut in her research to genetically engineer the sharks to be larger than usual, especially their brains, and as a side effect the sharks got smarter. Through some rather ingenious means, the sharks manage to start a chain of events that leads to the largely underwater facility to begin to flood, with the sharks infiltrating the facility and hunting down our intrepid human characters, who are desperately trying to escape the sinking and crumbling facility.

Renny Harlin directed the film from a script by Duncan Kennedy, Wayne Powers and Donna Powers. Harlin approached the film knowing that his audience was going to be very familiar with Jaws and realized there was no point trying to hold back showing the sharks and instead resolved to show them as much as possible. It helps that in the intervening 24 years, the effects had decidedly improved in terms of the animatronics for the three sharks. All three sharks are very convincing and work well in the film as they create convincing and unique thrills as they work their way through the flooded facility. He also employs CGI for them as well, with more mixed results (but given the B-movie roots of the film, I didn't mind). From a narrative standpoint, they also manage to create a few genuine shocks as they play with audience expectations, especially in terms of who will survive. I won't say more than that because even 20 years later this film contains one of the more legendary shock movie deaths this side of Psycho. The film has a few amusing nods to the Jaws films as well, starting with one of he sharks found chewing on a license plate...the same license plate Richard Dreyfuss pulls out of the Tiger Shark's stomach in Jaws. The whole film is then capped off with a genuinely great Trevor Rabin score that keeps the film moving at a breakneck pace as it moves from one crazy and intense moment to another.  

The film assembled quite a good cast for the film led by Samuel L. Jackson. This film is a bit of a departure for him playing a business executive Russell Franklin, although hints of a past tragedy with his character shows he may have some experience in survival situations. Still, Jackson does a great job in the role as the outsider of the group and actually shows some vulnerability as well at times. Thomas Jane really nails the big damn hero with a dark past role as Carter Blake, who got the job at the research station after being paroled from prison. Saffron Burrows really digs into her role as Dr. Susan McAlester and really shows her character's fierce determination with her research. It's only when disaster strikes and people start to die that she begins to see the horrible consequences of the short cuts she took in her research. I also have to call out LL Cool J who plays the facility's scripture quoting badass chef Preacher. He functions a bit as the comic relief but at the same time is such a cool character and LL Cool J makes the most of every scene he's in.

Deep Blue Sea is a movie that knows exactly what it is, a big goofy monster movie that has the primary function of being a big rollercoaster ride and the movie succeeds supremely at that. Does the plot stand up to a lot a scrutiny? No, of course not. But it knows how to play with audience expectations and has some damn good twists and turns to it along the way. It's also a lot of fun and when it comes to a monster movie you can't ask for much more than that.