“So we're not going to fight anymore! We're going to pull together and find a way to get out of here! First, we're gonna seal off this pool-- AAAARGGHHHH!!!”
Going back to ’99, let’s talk about the only other shark film besides Jaws that gets mentioned (okay, fine, besides…sigh…Sharknado). It’s got that one scene with Samuel L. Jackson that everyone remembers, but what else is there to dive into with Deep Blue Sea?
There’s much to talk about with sharks—fish so toothy even their skin is essentially made out of microscopic teeth, with an evolution stretching back longer than hominids have climbed on two legs, with senses and biology keen enough to capture the imagination of every human culture that could dip into the sea far enough to taste the surf. We have the arguments about demonizing them in ways that perhaps spilt over to real life a bit too much…so it’s lucky this one gets around it by having genetically engineered super-sharks that apparently are so smart they can identify what cameras are!
But we’re getting too far ahead—our setup is that scientist Susan McCallister (Saffron Burrows) is trying to cure Alzheimer’s using a special protein or something that can only be found in shark’s brains…because, well, let’s face it, it wasn’t going to be found in the brains of the chalk bass. After something goes wrong, company man Sam Jackson is tasked with accompanying here to oversee the final tests, with shark wrangler and handsome bad boy Carter (Thomas Jane) present at this oceanic facility to swim about with the sharks in ways that probably would get safety regulators sweating. Much like Jurassic Park, the seabase is evacuated in time to keep the cast fairly minimal before all hell inevitably breaks loose—with LL Cool J as the cook who gets caught up it in all!
Why does this one still get affection twenty-five years later? For one, it’s still actually fairly well shot and technically done—the environments are all practical, with a real sense of threat when the water starts consuming it all, and I do like the grimy, industrial feel of the sub-pen-turned-lab. Things are tensely shot when they need to be, we get a good look at things when they need to, and so on. It can be hard to pull off exciting action in and under water, but this one certainly makes a good effort at it.
The other part is that it has the grace to not take itself too seriously, but also to mess around with the audience just to keep things interesting—Sam Jackson was by now a decently established figure, and just when he’s giving his inspirational speech…yep, you guessed it, fish food time! In fact, near the end, it was in fact reshoots that completely changed which characters make it out in time—probably an instance where this did in fact pay off somewhat.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s deliberately cheesy or not—this includes the rap song LL did at the very end, which enthusiastically informs us that his hat is like a shark’s fin. And I have to wonder…is that just a really stupid looking hat? But the rest of the song is maybe about him actually being a shark, and that barracudas ain’t shit to him? Maybe he gets action from mermaids too? Who knows, who cares!
So yeah—it’s silly fun that at least is self-aware that it’s being silly, but also doesn’t use that as an excuse to simply throw complete and utter nonsense at the wall like certain other CG-overrun shark-themed flicks would later do. It’s that balance that can be harder to pull off than you think, but at least for this one, they almost did it. Now please, let’s also not have to talk about Sharktopus as well…
Comments
Post a Comment