Deep Blue Sea: A Shark Tale with an Intriguing Spin, but Unfulfilled Potential (Limited Edition Blu-ray)

The Film:

Over the course of 50 years between Steven Spielberg's masterpiece "Jaws" and now, shark movies seemed to have taken quite a downturn. Spielberg's classic is considered one of the greatest horror films of all time and even earned several Oscars (on top of a nod for Best Picture), while nowadays sharks have been relegated to more sub-standard fare like "Sharknado" or "The Meg." But what about other entries that came in between? Were there no others that could do justice to this little sub-genre?

One such attempt was Renny Harlin's "Deep Blue Sea" from 1999, a film that tried to bring excitement back to shark flicks by blending it with another genre that had been very popular back in the '70s. With the film having just celebrated its 25th anniversary, Arrow Films is releasing a new Limited Edition Blu-ray featuring a new 4K restoration and several extras, so let's go back and see how this well-known shark tale compares to others of its kind.

The film opens with an escaped shark attempting to attack a boat before being wrangled by Carter Blake (Thomas Jane). However, this is no ordinary shark. It's part of an experiment being conducted by Dr. Susan McCallister (Saffron Burrows) in which she is attempting to re-activate brain cells in patients suffering from Alzheimer's, an experiment that has resulted in the sharks becoming intelligent due to their enlarged brains. The accidental escape causes a lot of concern, and so her financial backer, Russell Franklin (Samuel L. Jackson), decides to go check out their underwater facility himself to make sure it's still a safe investment.

During his visit, Susan proves that the experiment works, but shortly after, one of the sharks injures her research partner, Jim Whitlock (Stellan Skarsgård). This requires him to be air-lifted out, but a powerful storm results in him being dropped into the shark chamber, where one of the sharks subsequently forces the helicopter to crash into the facility, causing an explosion and massive damage. One of the sharks then uses the stretcher to break the glass of the lab's main observation window, giving the creatures access, and forcing the remaining humans into a desperate fight for survival.

When it comes to shark movies, there isn't really a wide variety of things that can be done as far as a plot goes. You obviously need to have a lot of water and a way to have the sharks be threatening to a group of people, so that doesn't leave you with a lot of options (which goes a long way towards explaining how they ended up in a tornado later on). You can have them terrorizing people on a beach, or you can throw them into a scenario like this in the middle of the ocean, while attempting to add little things to the plot here and there to try and make it seem fresh and interesting.

In the case of "Deep Blue Sea," screenwriters Duncan Kennedy, Donna Powers, and Wayne Powers decided to make their shark tale an homage to disaster movies of the '70s, with a particular focus on "The Poseidon Adventure." The main difference here is that everything is right-side-up, and the survivors of the disaster have a lot more than just water to worry about. Here they're being hunted by very powerful and highly-intelligent sharks that want out of their captivity, with the best way of doing that being to attack their captors.

This leads to a game of cat-and-mouse, where the humans simply want to get back to the surface, which they naturally need to accomplish via a complicated route through the facility, but the sharks have an intricate plan of their own to fulfill their desired outcome. It's not that there's anything particularly wrong with the plot, which does provide a little excitement every now and again, but by the time it's over, you end up wishing that they had been able to do a little more with it.

After taking a fair amount of time to set up its main plot, the remainder consists mainly of the survivors going from one room/corridor/tube to another, desperately trying to avoid the intelligent sharks and the water that is flooding in and blocking certain paths. Of course, there are encounters with the sharks and other complications along the way, but for the most part, the screenwriters don't really go out of their way to give these people anything particularly compelling to do as they slowly work their way to the surface.

Again, it's rather difficult to come up with anything new or even slightly different than your standard shark attack flick, and "Deep Blue Sea" was certainly on the right track as far as trying to do something out of the ordinary ("smart sharks" is certainly a fascinating concept), but it really only scratches the surface of the idea, while its under-developed human characters get stuck in a rut in their desperation to escape. It's a spin that had a fair amount of potential, but ultimately leaves you a little disappointed that they didn't fully tap into how suspenseful, wild, and over-the-top it could've been.

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Video/Audio:

"Deep Blue Sea" comes to Limited Edition Blu-ray in a 2.39:1, 1080p High Definition transfer of excellent quality. The new 4K restoration, from the original camera negatives and approved by Renny Harlin himself, looks perfectly sharp & clear throughout its duration, making the film look the best it has in 25 years. Likewise, the original 5.1 DTS HD-MA and Dolby Atmos soundtracks are fantastic, giving you all of the dialogue, sound effects, and music in outstanding quality. Overall, Arrow Films has done a marvelous job restoring the film in both departments for this new release.

Special Features:

Commentary by Screenwriter Duncan Kennedy (New)

Commentary by Filmmaker and Critic Rebekah McKendry (New)

Commentary by Director Renny Harlin and Star Samuel L. Jackson

From the Frying Pan into the Studio Tank (25 Minutes) (New)

Beneath the Surface (20 Minutes) (New)

When Sharks Attack: The Making of Deep Blue Sea (15 Minutes)

The Sharks of the Deep Blue Sea (8 Minutes)

Deleted Scenes (4 Sequences, 8 Minutes)

The Limited Edition Blu-ray comes with a great assortment of extras, both new and archival, including three commentary tracks, making-of featurettes, and a visual essay. Definitely more than enough material here for fans to sink their teeth into.

Conclusion:

Renny Harlin's "Deep Blue Sea" presents an intriguing spin on the standard shark tale that has highly-intelligent forms of the creature threatening a group of survivors trapped in an underwater research facility, but while the film may provide a little excitement here and there as the humans desperately try to reach the surface, you end up wishing that the screenwriters had been able to do a little more with this idea, ultimately leaving us with a shark film that was swimming in the right direction, but didn't quite tap into the full potential of the concept.

Score: 2.5/5

Available on Limited Edition Blu-ray starting tomorrow.

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