This Gene Simmons produced survival film has some fun moments, but otherwise stuff we've seen before. It's worth a viewing in the right mindset with low expectations.
“A flight from Los Angeles to Shanghai goes down in the middle of the Pacific. After surviving the crash, the survivors soon discover they’re not alone and they must survive the shark-infested waters.”
Renny Harlin’s Deep Water is a perfectly competent, throwback action-disaster thriller that feels straight out of the early 2000s. Harlin, the director behind classics like Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, and the shark-heavy Deep Blue Sea, knows exactly how to hit the right notes in this familiar genre. He delivers a solid mix of human drama and high-stakes survival, with adversity coming from both the people trapped together and the ever-present threat of sharks circling the plane wreckage.
The film doesn’t dive particularly deep into its characters. They’re mostly one-dimensional, an annoying guy, a bully, a hopeless romantic, etc. They serve their purpose to the story, largely expendable. Even with Aaron Eckhart’s character, we don’t get a lot of information on him that makes it somewhat confusing at the end. Unfortunately, since you don’t really connect with these characters on a story level you don’t really care what ends up happening, at least that was my experience. The film just doesn’t waste time trying to be something its not. Where it shines is in the execution: it delivers some genuinely intense and brutal action sequences, particularly the opening plane crash, which contains some of the most visceral moments I’ve seen. All logic also flights out the nearest hatch when it comes to the behavior of the sharks. The most uninformed movie-goer probably knows more about shark behavior than the filmmakers here. Just turn off your brain, accept that these monsters aren’t real, and try to have fun.
Go in with low expectations and Deep Water will win you over. It’s fairly paint-by-numbers, but it’s an entertaining, fast-paced ride that delivers the goods when it counts.
Video
The Blu-ray presents the film in crisp 1080p High Definition. The ocean scenes look appropriately vast and blue, while the nighttime sequences and underwater shots maintain solid detail and contrast. The transfer is clean and does justice to the effects and locations.
Audio
Audio comes in immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, with excellent use of surrounds for the crashing waves, screaming engines, and aggressive shark activity. The mix is dynamic and puts you right in the middle of the chaos, making the tension hit harder.
Special Features
No extras or digital code included with this release.
Deep Water on Blu-ray can be fun in the right mood. Renny Harlin definitely doesn’t make the splash he used to, but Deep Water has some moments that make it at least worth a viewing. This one is out now.
