Deep Rising

If the cash is there we do not care! What kind of life philosophy is that?

A gang of modern day pirates board a luxurious ocean liner intent on looting it of everything. However, once on board the liner appears to be deserted, all traces of human life seemingly vanished into thin air. Apparently some strange sea creatures have run amok and the pirates themselves are now next on the menu!

"Deep Rising" doesn't have any delusion about what it wants to be, it was marketed as a raging "B" movie man versus beast gun fest, and that is exactly what it is - with tongue firmly in its bloody cheek. When the tag line reads "Full Scream Ahead" then you get the impression it's not a film to be remotely taken seriously.

Written and directed by Stephen Sommers ("The Mummy"), "Deep Rising" is a blend of "Alien", "Poseidon Adventure" and "Under Siege", all built around the "Ten Little Indians" structure. Blood spurts and quips are dealt, and the film isn't found wanting in the good old "it's behind you" department. The cast give it the full gusto histrionics, Treat Williams, the sumptuous Famke Jansen (holding her own surrounded by hundreds of pounds of testosterone), Anthony Heald, Kevin J O'Connor, Wes Studi, Djimon Hounsou and, erm, Jason Flemyng also star.

It's a mini riot out at sea, great great fun. 7/10

Big-budget ‘B’ adventure/horror on the high seas, but too cartoonish

A band of ruthless hijackers seize the world’s richest cruise ship in the South China Sea, but no one’s on board. Something mysterious & terrifying from the great depths got there before them. Treat Williams and Kevin J. O'Connor play the protagonists who inadvertently transport the hijackers while Famke Janssen plays a survivor on the vessel. Meanwhile Anthony Heald is on board as the shady owner of the ship and Wes Studi plays one of the key thugs.

“Deep Rising” (1998) is an action/horror that mixes “The Poseidon Adventure” (1972) with “Alien Resurrection” (1997), but encumbers it with camp and a creature that does wildly unbelievable things. While the monster is interesting in some respects, it’s actually not original. It’s a glaring rip-off of the Celestial Man’s true form revealed in the 1974 issue of Marvel Comics’ The Defenders #14.

Nevertheless this is a fun, thrilling adventure if you can roll with the above hitches. The cast is diverse and spirited. Yet this doesn’t change that it’s basically a B-type of dumb adventure/horror flick. It just cost 30 times as much as the usual B sci-fi and bombed at the box office. Meanwhile the feminine department is limited to Famke Janssen and she never did much for me (but she’s a’right), although Una Damon has a small role.

The film runs 1 hour, 46 minutes.

GRADE: C

After being hired by the rather unsavoury "Hanover" (Wes Studi), Treat Williams finds himself embroiled in the at-sea hijacking of what appears to be a broken down luxury liner. Thing is - where have all the passengers gone? Turns out that the would-be looters are about to become the hunted in this actually quite enjoyable sea creature escapade. As with so many of the films in this genre, I wanted the multi-tentacled beastie to win - all the way along. The characters - even the ones we are supposed to like - are all pretty shallow and frankly deserved any sticky ending coming their way. It features plenty of action, fireworks, loads of implausible scenarios and the odd bit of gore before an ending that was very much as expected. It is sustained to an extent by some decent production values, and the end-to-end nature of the action makes it quite a watchable, if entirely forgettable, maritime monster movie with some wonderful audio that sounds like a serious case of indigestion.