DEEP WATER and a Cause for Optimism

DEEP WATER (Blu-ray)

2026 / 108 min

Magenta Light

Review by Mr. Bonnie, the Chumbucket😼

Nobody needs to be told that shark movies are a dime a dozen these days. They also don’t need to be reminded that most of them are cheap garbage. And only the truly delusional hold out optimism that any new shark movie is gonna be another Jaws. That will never happen.

But it's reasonable to be optimistic that at least some of them will turn out to be decent, and we’re occasionally rewarded with some good ones, such as 1999’s Deep Blue Sea. Directed with workmanlike skill by Renny Harlin back when his name was still (sort of) revered in the action genre, the film was a lot of wild, ridiculous fun. 

Deep Blue Sea remains a pretty highly regarded slab of sharky cinema, so even though he hadn’t made a movie worth enduring since then, one probably can’t help but be equally optimistic over Harlin’s return to shark infested waters with Deep Water. This one doesn’t reach the same heights, but with tempered expectations, it’s an enjoyable chompfest.

Part shark thriller, part disaster movie, Deep Water certainly boasts an irresistible premise (for genre fans, anyway). Aaron Eckhart and Ben Kingsley star as the pilots of a commercial airliner that crash lands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, which kills most of the passengers. Kingsley earns his paycheck in the first 30 minutes, leaving Eckhart and the remaining survivors to contend with a swarm of hungry sharks encircling the crash site. Some get eaten, some don’t.

Aaron Eckhart & co-star.

Taking a cue from the old Airport franchise, Deep Water frontloads its story with a gaggle of stock characters, along with their prerequisite side stories. Most are standard issue, though Angus Sampson is highly amusing as a cartoonishly obnoxious passenger. In fact, so much effort is put into making the audience hate him that the (enormous) team of screenwriters neglect to develop other passengers beyond potential fish food. 

Elsewhere, the action sequences are pretty enjoyable, starting with the plane crash, which is lengthy, destructive, well edited and surprisingly violent. The bloody shark attack scenes, of which there are plenty, run hot and cold. While fairly convincing beneath the surface, the spell is broken whenever these beasties burst from the water, rendered through GCI that’s no more convincing than it was in Deep Blue Sea 30 years ago. 

With a bigger budget and better overall performances than the typical straight-to-video shark flick, at least Deep Water more-or-less justifies our initial optimism. Nobody’s gonna walk away thinking they’ve seen a great film, nor will it dispel the consensus that Renny Harlin’s best days are behind him, but tireless fans of this stuff should have a good time.