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Ridley Coote

Deep Blue Sea (1999) Dir: Renny Harlin

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I quite enjoy a shark film every now and then, even if the majority of them are pretty rubbish. This Renny Harlin directed horror from 1999 is one of those shark films people talk about lots - I hadn't seen it though, so it felt like now was a good time to change that.


The CGI and green screen was laughably bad, even for the 90's. Honestly, I couldn't help but laugh at some of the shots. It's hard to tell if the film was supposed to be taken seriously because of how silly it all is. Some of the stuff that happens looks, and is, so stupid - but it made me laugh a lot, so I guess it was entertaining.


The story was so absurdly dumb, but honestly I was having a great time watching it. Nothing made sense, the characters made dumb choices, the dialogue was terrible and the action was hilariously poor, but I could not stop laughing and smiling.


Thomas Jane lacked any real charisma, and his acting was subpar, bit in a film so bad, it kind of didn't matter. He looked cool, and that was pretty much all he needed to do. He did have a couple alright scenes towards the end though, I will admit.


Saffron Burrows was more wooden than an old kitchen spoon, I'm afraid. She was the only actor in the film who didn't offer anything entertaining throughout the whole film, and it was genuinely annoying to watch her.

Jacqueline McKenzie and Michael Rapaport both had some decent scenes, particularly Rapaport, although both felt a little underutilised, in my opinion. I thought that both Samuel L. Jackson and Stellan Skarsgård were alright too, but they only had brief appearances. Jackson had a decent monologue though.


Musician 'LL Cool J', aka James Todd Smith, was arguably the most entertaining person in the whole film. His acting was bad, his jokes were cheesy, but I found him hilarious regardless.I do feel like he paid to be the surprise badass character of the film, but, to be honest, it was funny anyway.


Overall, there is no pretending like this is a good film - it just isn't. However, if ever the term "so bad it's good" was justified, it might just be for this film. If you want to see a good shark film, go ahead and watch 'Jaws', but if you wanna have a good laugh for a little under two hours, give this one a go.



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