 |
| Images courtesy of Arrow Video |
Renny Harlin is arguably the most globally famous and
successful Finnish filmmaker in Hollywood history, starting out in horror with Prison
and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master before segueing
into the action picture with Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger and The
Long Kiss Goodnight. A modestly
sized successor to Walter Hill who also was the director’s mentor, Harlin’s
career while varied with some hits and some hard misses ala Cutthroat Island
is often written off as dispensable filler.
With Arrow Video, however, and their upcoming 4K UHDs of both The
Long Kiss Goodnight and today’s film review of his 1999 sharksploitation
epic Deep Blue Sea, the tide seems to be turning for Harlin’s
reputation. Undeterred and a film worker
at heart, Harlin’s plainly tongue-in-cheek science-fiction horror thriller
comes to Arrow Video in a new limited-edition boxed set featuring a new
transfer supervised and approved by Harlin and has never looked or sounded
better!
In the middle of the ocean lies a remote secret multimillion
dollar research facility with a team of scientists commandeered by Susan
McAlester (Saffron Burrows) involving developing a cure for Alzheimer's by
genetically enhancing the size of a shark’s brain mass. When one of the super sharks escapes the lab
and attacks some boaters, executive Russell Franklin (Samuel L. Jackson) is
sent in to pull the plug on the project, leaving her team including but not
limited to shark wrangler Carter Blake (Thomas Jane), scientists Jim Whitlock (Stellan
Skarsgård) and Janice Higgins (Jacqueline McKenzie) scrambling to prove the
worth and value of the project. Amid a
demonstration of subduing and extracting brain fluid from one of the sharks,
however, the animals break free of their cages having enhanced brain masses and
they proceed to wreak havoc and horror on the laboratory and the people trapped
inside it.
An expensive, scenic plain faced tongue-in-cheek B-movie
boasting arresting set pieces by Event Horizon production designer
Joseph Bennett lensed handsomely in scope by recurring The Fast and the
Furious series cinematographer Stephen F. Windon and featuring a trademark
rousing score by Armageddon composer Trevor Rabin, Deep Blue Sea is
an enjoyably slickly silly ‘animals-attack’ romp. Featuring LL Cool J as the facility’s cook
Sherman Dudley and the film’s comic relief who also contributed two original
tracks to the film’s soundtrack, the tone of the film doesn’t quite go full Meg
2: The Trench but it comes close.
Pure check-your-brain-at-the-door action-thriller escapism that combine
Steven Spielberg with James Cameron in a kind of goofy mashup, it is not to be
taken completely seriously. It also
plays against expectations, particularly with some of the more notable
supporting actors involved, keeping viewers guessing who will or won’t make it
out alive.
Released in the summer of 1999 to sizable box office
returns, grossing $165 million globally against a $60 million budget, Deep
Blue Sea was Harlin’s first real bona fide blockbuster since his 1993 Sylvester
Stallone epic Cliffhanger which this film pays homage to at one point
even. Despite mixed critical reception
with some finding the sharksploitation exercise to be somewhat dull with
laughably corny looking CGI effects which look rather cartoonish, the film was
enough of a commercial hit to have spawned two direct-to-video sequel films
(without Harlin) and reignite interest in the shark attack subgenre. Yes it shamelessly cribs key scenes from Jaws
despite having a higher gore and kill quotient, but most going into this know
that full well. Arrow Video’s 4K UHD
boxed set is jam packed with extras and will absolutely satisfy
sharksploitation fans as well as Harlin disciples who have urged moviegoers to
take another look at his stuff and not merely write him off as a B movie giant.
--Andrew Kotwicki
