Deep Blue Sea

THE STORY: I rented this movie with very high expectations. After all, Jaws was a big hit when it came out. I thought to myself that with today's technology and all that guff that a movie about killer sharks would have to be excellent. Well, Deep Blue Sea isn't a really sucky movie. Its just not anything new. It uses the same old "Alien" type method. Trap some people in a place with a monster and see who survives. Hey, I might not be able to do better myself but I was hoping for something different.

Dr. Susan McAlester is a scientist working out of an abandoned naval base at sea. She and her friends are trying to come up with a magic bullet cure for degenerative brain diseases. The company funding their research is owned by Russell Franklin. The research involves getting some kind of brain fluid from sharks and one of the sharks gets free. It attacks a boat of generic partyers, but before any of them are killed Carter Blake, a man working for  McAlester captures the shark.

This doesn't make Franklin happy. He wants to close down the project before his stock takes a dive. But McAlester talks him into giving her one more weekend to prove her work is invaluable. To this end, Franklin travels with her back to the sea base, Aquatica, to see what's being done. He meets several of the other fodder...I mean characters. Like Dr. Janice Higgins, Dr. Whitlock, Carter Black, Scoggins and Preacher. Preacher is the cook on the base and he's kind of religious.

As in all movies of this type, I don't like having to name the characters. After all we all know at least 2/3's of them are dead meat anyway.

There are three sharks in captivity that the experiments are being run on. While extracting this miracle drug from one, it attacks and bites the arm off of Whitlock. A rescue chopper is called to take him to land, but (trumpet blare here) a storm at sea is brewing. The storm and a bad luck scenario cause the chopper to crash into the base blowing up a lot of it. The main characters are trapped below sea level and must escape. But the sharks seem to be blocking them at every move. Why? Well, McAllister is forced to admit that she and Whitlock broke a bunch of rules and used genetics to enlarge the brains in the sharks. This was too get more of the fluid. The sharks are now smarter than your average bear...uh, shark.

The rest of the movie is watching the characters try to get to the surface and evade the sharks. Most of them don't make it. Well, you knew that already. Two of the sharks are killed by the crew, but one still remains. When they do get to the surface the only ones to make it are Preacher, Carter Blake and McAllister. That's when they see that the sharks have been trying to get through the gates of the base and into the ocean. Blake and McAllister know they have to stop the final shark from getting loose and breeding a race of super sharks. McAllister sacrifices herself to draw the shark in, but when Blake tries to save her he's almost killed. A wounded Preacher uses the weapon they've fashioned....a harpoon-dynamite thingie....to blow the shark to little bitty shark bits. The end.

Now, this wasn't a really sucky movie. But it certainly wasn't a new idea. I pretty much knew who was going to die way ahead of time. I knew who wasn't going to die easily, too. Preacher was given enough screen time that I either thought he'd live or die doing something heroic. When the heroic thing panned out I knew he'd make it. Not that Preacher wasn't brave or anything. I just knew he wasn't going to be the one to actually come up with a plan. He was wounded and it was obvious during the "We have to kill that last shark" thing that he was going to be the one to actually do it...even though he wasn't in that scene. That was an easy one though. I knew Blake would live. As an ex criminal that's gone straight and having a conscience I knew he'd end up being the hero. By the same token I knew McAllister was fish food. When it was revealed that she used illegal means to get her discovery her fate was sealed. It would have been a little more interesting I think if she was the only one to survive! All in all, Deep Blue Sea is at best, passable mindless entertainment. Its not going to rock your world, but it will pass a rainy afternoon.

Franklin was actor Samuel L. Jackson. Jackson is one of the best black actors around and I like him. Preacher was played by rapper LL Cool J. LL is okay in my book...meaning he has never pissed me off in movies or in his music. Michael Rappaport was Scoggins. I've seen him before in lots of movies but I can't place them right now. The rest of the cast I've never heard of...they're probably known, but I watch very few "new" movies so I don't know them. I must increase this knowledge.

Best Lines: "If this is a lesson about the drinking, lets just say I've learned it...don't get carried away, showing your vengeful side. I know you're wrath, Lord."-A comic relief prayer from LL Cool J.

"You Stupid Bitch!"- Dr, Higgins to Dr. McAllister when she learns that McAllister used illegal genetic procedures to make the Sharks brains bigger. I wholeheartedly agree. I'd be putting my foot so far up Mcallister's ass she'd be tasting toenails.

1.) This dude's arm isn't bleeding too much....well, I mean his stump isn't bleeding very much. A big [unwrite]in' shark just bit his arm off! Now, I'm not a doctor and maybe I'm wrong, but I'd think he'd be spurting blood! I sliced halfway through my thumb once while chopping some vegetables....not only did it hurt like all hell, but I literally bled all over the over the place. (I probably needed stitches, but that's another thing all together) My point is that I only cut my thumb....and I had to bandage and rebandage it all night. (I'm not talking a band-aid brand bandage either.) Considering the amount of blood I must have lost from a thumb I think an arm being bitten off would have blood gushing out of it!

2.) Perhaps if it happened differently I wouldn't have a problem with it. But when the Coast Guard chopper crashes (which seems to happen from a series of unlikely events) it not only smashes the tower and destroys the communication equipment but it damages the base enough to trap the the survivors too. now this is the premise for the movie, but it feels too much like "been there, done that"....and a little unlikely, too.

3.) I didn't expect Franklin to live to the end of the movie. He's a minority, he's rich and he seems to be smart and brave. So by Hollywood rules and the physics of the movie universe he pretty much has to die! But his quick death when he was making his "Lets all pull together and get the [unwrite] outta here" speech shocked the hell out of me. It was done that way for "startle value" and nothing else. As I said we knew it was going to happen, but man, I am so tired of the brothers getting killed in almost every single freaking movie! Well, Preacher makes it to the end, but still, I guess the only way I'm ever going to see a flick where all of the minorities actually make it to the end is if I write it myself.

4.) While the CGI sharks weren't really that bad, it some scenes they were obviously CGI effects. Too bad, too. It would have been cool if I hadn't noticed that.

NUDITY AND SEX: No nudity. Dr. McAllister is seen in her underwear though.

HUH?: Usually in the movies when there's a rescue helicopter of any kind they make it look like the pilots are chicken[unwrite]. The pilot will refuse to take off or land because of some kind of danger (a storm/ enemy fire, etc) Usually the hero or a sidekick or someone pulls out a gun and says "You will SAVE those those men!". That's why I'm a little shocked that the Coast Guard chopper comes out in a horrible sea storm. Hey, that's their job, I understand that. But I know that in the military (the army at least) aircraft don't usually go into situation like that because the danger is too great. What's the point in killing the flight crew trying to rescue one man? If anyone reading this has more knowledge than I on this subject email me please. I just don't see the Coast Guard flying a chopper out in storm from Satan's bowels to rescue a guy...one guy...when they could have said "keep him alive for a few hours and when the storm lightens up we'll be there!". I'm not calling the CG chicken[unwrite]. I just think that they'd be a little more safety-conscious....too add to that...why doesn't the base have any medical staff?

Preacher almost gets killed by the super sharks while trying to get his parrot to come to him. He must have the Ripley-disease. (In the movie Alien, Ripley risks her life to save a cat!) Is he freaking nutso!? Folks, that bird was on its own. No one sane would have paused to save it when in such great danger. Hell, the shark eats the parrot anyway. I can honestly say that unless it was my wife, mother or child in there with me I would have been thinking "My ass is first, everything else is second! Distant second!" Well I don't have any kids (that I know of... heehee) and my mom passed on years ago. I wouldn't have my wife there on that desolate base so I can honestly say the bird's ass was forfeit. I would have fed my cats to that shark if it allowed me to escape! Me, die for a pet? FUNK DAT!

THE TALLY: You won't miss much by NOT watching this movie, but as I said before, its not too sucky. Just, well, lets say, average. (A little below average, really) Which is a shame. The faith that I and most people have in most newer movies has lowered our standards to things like this. Derivative and formula driven. Despite what I said I should cast this into the Inferno...we should all cast movies like this into it...then maybe the industry would stop trying to blind us with special effects, CGI animation and make a movie with a little originality and thought. What a novel f***in' idea.