If you’re feeling nips of déjà vu, don’t panic. Roughly two years ago, Claudio Fäh premiered his ambitious yet underwhelming “plane crash shark attack” movie, No Way Up. Luckily, B-movie technician Renny Harlin knows his way around mid-tier enjoyment with an emphasis on calculated ridiculousness. Deep Water starts as a terrifying airplane disaster flick, then morphs into a frenzied creature feature as sharks feed on waterlogged survivors. It’s a bit bloated and frazzled—a downside to such a large ensemble vying for meaty emotional arcs—but Harlin’s in control of his cataclysmic air-then-aquatic thriller, which captivates throughout.
Aaron Eckhart stars as Ben, a middle-aged First Officer who co-pilots alongside Captain Rich (Ben Kingsley) for Northeastern Airlines. Their next route, after a night of Rich’s slutty little “Fly Me to the Moon” karaoke serenades, goes international: Los Angeles to Shanghai. A motley group of passengers, from American athletes to Chinese e-gamers to business-class pricks, boards the flight, settling in for a smooth fourteen-hour flight. Instead, a cargo fire erupts, causing an oceanic crash landing that gets worse when a school of hungry sharks starts feasting on injured passengers with no means of escape.
Originally, Deep Water was conceived as a sequel to Bait 3D, a fantastic Australian mashup of a “Fin Flick” about tsunamis and supermarkets. Hence, two of the four credited writers here are Shayne Armstrong and S.P. Krause, also credited on Bait 3D. That doesn’t mean the movies are equals, but you can sense twinkles of Bait 3D’s ferocity in spots. Perhaps that’s also Damien Power’s collaboration on the screenplay, notable for his mean-spirited stunner, Killing Grounds. Once the predators start chomping, it’s a flesh-sack buffet. For all the character introductions, and Harlin’s ability to establish passengers as individuals we care (enough) about, Deep Water doesn’t shy away from being a bloody, splashy-savage massacre.
Although, as swimmers and floaters alike are thrashed apart, it’s a bit hard to track certain continuity. If Deep Water has a problem, it’s trying to establish too many subplots including horny parents, nerdy gamer guys with out-of-their-league crushes, and other “diverse” stereotypes, only for their deaths to mean little in the grand scheme of chaos. Harlin overindulges in schmaltz and forces too many melodramatic circumstances, but oftentimes, a razor-toothed demise cuts these arcs short and churns to the next dynamic sans lasting impact. Not to mention, Geoff Lamb’s editing makes it hard to track so many characters and results in anticlimactic off-screen deaths while introducing new focal passengers at random.
There’s a lot of “Where’s Almond Mom?” or “Who’s Long-Haired Guy #3, and why is he front and center?”
Frankly, Deep Water is best when gliding through the air, with holes torn into the plane’s steel hull and engines ablaze. Kingsley’s doing his best Sully impression as Rich and Ben attempt to land the aircraft with minimal casulties, unbeknownst to the shallow coral reef under softer waves. As the Northeastern vessel plummets, there’s a gasp-worthy sense of thrills that Harlin plays up for the big screen. It’s a wonderfully theatrical sequence that takes its time as impact becomes imminent, milking the tension of a slow yet alarming descent as travelers bounce around a breached cabin like action figures sucked into a vacuum.
After splashdown, Deep Water falls into a rigor of subgenre familiarity that Harlin has no trouble elevating, but visuals aren’t as striking. Hyper-exotic digital backdrops of crystal blues and cotton-candy pinks pop in an inorganic way, too vivid and with blurred details. Sharks look polished and well-composed at times, but in other shots, dart across the screen like a video game cutscene. The set pieces of gigantic plane debris, where characters are either trapped underwater or use hunks as shelter, try to avoid the feeling that you’re watching a largely tank-filmed feature, but it’s hard to avoid cinematography that doesn’t quite sell sea-set shots as anything but a backlot pool.
Still, Deep Water is a mouthful of nasty edge-of-your-seat fun with a naughty, borderline evil streak. Angus Sampson gives you a villain to hate: a corporate elitist whose selfishness gets multiple innocents killed, which, while immensely loathsome, lets the performer stand out. Eckhart’s veteran jumps into survival mode, but Sampson is there to thwart progress with a narcissistic smile. That’s on top of the natural chaos as more sharks keep appearing: one, three, too many. When death comes by way of swift snackage, there is no mercy—it’s ruthless stuff.
No Way Up doggy paddled so Deep Water could sprint across the water’s surface like one of those crazy lizards. Harlin’s back to slingin’ popcorn entertainment after his trilogy that shan’t be mentioned, which inspires hope. It’s no Deep Blue Sea, but few “Finema” titles are. Despite flawed techniques and an overpopulated cast that gets lost at sea (and amongst themselves), Deep Water marries horror, hope, and heart in a winning combination. Harlin’s back with a moderate vengeance, and I’m here for it.
Movie Score: 3/5