Oct 081998
 
four reels

A miss-matched group, including roguish John Finnegan (Treat Williams), his sidekick Joey (Kevin J. O’Connor), a beautiful jewel thief (Famke Janssen), a ruthless business man, and a band of mercenaries, are trapped on a disabled luxury liner with a giant sea monster.  They have a lot of guns and the monster has a lot of tentacles and a taste for people.  What more plot do you need?

Loud and fast, Deep Rising is old fashioned fun.  It’s boys with toys, blowing away monsters and getting eaten in turn, plus there’s a really hot chick in a white tank top.  It’s silly, and proud of it, and proves that editing is the most important part of filmmaking.  It doesn’t matter if there are huge plot holes, nothing is original, and the characters have the depth of a drained kiddy pool, as long as you cut it all together so that you’re never given a chance to breathe, or think.  Call it a masterwork of choreography:

Step two, kick two, twirl and leap.  Run two, joke two, machine guns fire and villain devoured.  Hide two, macho stance two, girl smiles and it all blows up.

It means nothing, but why does it have to?

Writer/director Stephen Summers has an acute eye for, and deep understanding of, spectacle, excitement, cultural icons, and joy.  Plot, he’s not quite so clear on.  And as for restraint, sense, focus, the difference between funny and silly, and the concept that more is not always better—those are beyond him.  Each of his films has the same general feel.  How well they work is a matter of the balance between his insights and his flaws.  In The Mummy he got it just about perfect.  In Van Helsing, the juvenile won out.  Here he’s in good form, turning up the volume with glee, but never going too far.

The characters may be cutouts, but they are identifiable cutouts, and easy to like or hate, as required.  Our hero is a close cousin to Hans Solo, a little calmer, but equally glib.  Treat Williams (in a part that was offered to Harrison Ford) demonstrates that he can be a charismatic leading man, given a director who understands fun.  Trillian, the leading lady/romantic interest/jewel thief/eye candy avoids the old woman-in-peril  cliché, instead going for the modern useful-smart-secondary-woman cliché.  Famke Janssen is gorgeous, with a smile that makes me feel good every time I see it.  She hits all the right notes, combining glamorous lady,  girl next door, and sex kitten.  Kevin J. O’Connor once again plays the comedy sidekick (as he did in The Mummy and Van Helsing) with better timing than in his other roles.  The villains (and there are many) are all stereotypically evil and I’ve no complaints.

Deep Rising was savaged by critics when it was released, many comparing it to Titanic, which was still at theaters.  Deep Rising is a lot more fun, but I can’t see any reason to judge those two together.  They both involve boats, and that’s about it.  Many, including Roger Ebert, wanted to group Deep Rising with Alien, and then denigrate it for not matching the tone and depth of the older film.  But they’ve missed what kind of film this is.  It isn’t a horror movie, nor is it a drama.  This is an adventure pic, pure and simple.  You could compare it to Raiders of the Lost Arc (although that’s a little unfair for any film), Romancing the Stone, or to a James Bond movie.  You aren’t supposed to be tense or feel real concern (did anyone get upset when Jill Masterson died from gold paint, or worry that James might not make it?).  Nor should you feel frightened or learn something about the darkness of the human soul.  This is a ride.  Grab some popcorn and hop on.