This week, we have a movie about a group of divers who are repeatedly forced into shark infested waters by criminals in order to retrieve sunken precious cargo. What? I already reviewed that?
Yeah, Fear Below was a lot better. While not quite Worst Movie Ever territory, Into the Deep comes awfully close. Actually, it might qualify for that tag. I’m debating and probably won’t make a final decision until I post the review. There’s just very little here that’s actually enjoyable.
The movie follows Cassidy, an oceanographer, who goes scuba diving with her husband and friends while in Thailand, only to be accosted by pirates and forced to retrieve a sunken cache of drugs. Also there are great white sharks because a) global warming and b) we don’t really even know where they spend all their time anyways, so who knows? Maybe they are supposed to be in Thailand? Yeah, I don’t know. That’s an explanation that the movie gives, though!
The main antagonist is Jordan, played by Jon Seda, and he at least looks like he’s trying to have fun. Key word: trying. He’s neither over the top enough to make it campy and cheesy nor strong enough to make anything in the script work as a more serious movie. But he is the only cast member with any personality, so at least that’s something.
Richard Dreyfuss is theoretically the hook here. He, obviously, played Dr. Hooper in Jaws. He is also the worst part of the movie. His performance is fine, I guess, but any kind of momentum just dies a painful, wheezing death whenever he shows up.
About half the movie is flashbacks to Cassidy’s childhood as Dreyfuss, her grandfather, gives her bland platitudes and “rousing” speeches to encourage her to return to the ocean after the understandable trauma of watching her father get torn apart by sharks right in front of her.
It’s rambling, repetitive, and none of the actresses that play Cassidy look anything like each other. It also takes all of the focus away from anything even remotely exciting in the present day without giving us anything new about Cassidy.
Usually, when a character has a tragic backstory, we get to see them overcome whatever trauma has lingered into adulthood. Watch your father get attacked by a shark? Great! Now we have a natural arc of you overcoming your fear of the water and discovering hidden depths of strength that you never knew existed.
The problem with Into the Deep is that all of that growth and development happens during these flashbacks. Sure, she kicks up a fuss about the idea of there potentially being sharks in the water, but it’s hard to care. It’s hollow. Just because the movie shows us her arc out of order does not mean that we get the satisfaction of watching it happen.
The CGI was bad. I can ignore bad CGI. Almost every shark movie has bad CGI. But this was really bad. And it wasn’t just the sharks, either. It was the poorly rendered blood pools and the obviously fake smog billowing out of the ship’s smoke pipe.
It was the fact that the big, climatic, emotional moment was the exact same as the one in Dangerous Animals but so much worse. It was already a kind of dumb moment, but having a very large, very fake great white shark somehow swim in place for thirty seconds so that it can happen just made it so much worse. I can’t even give the movie points for smart human behavior about staying still to avoid drawing attention because this one moment is so dumb.
Skip this one. It’s a waste of 90 minutes.
Random Thoughts
The credits include a very long (and honestly very rambling) speech from Richard Dreyfuss about the importance of shark conservation. While not well done, I’m glad that it was there. The message is a critical one.
No, great white sharks are not found in Thailand. And they prefer colder waters, so even global warming wouldn’t force them there.
Jordan’s scars were weird. I don’t know how you get face scars like that.
There is a second movie called Into the Deep that came out in 2022. Despite taking place on a boat, it doesn't seem like it has anything to do with sharks.
Okay, this is getting the Worst Movie Ever tag. Hopefully next week’s is better!
… Fine, it probably won’t be better. But it involves a water park, so it should at least be fun!
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An Honest Fangirl loves video games, horror movies, and superheroes, and occasionally watches far too many shark movies.
A contestant for "Worst Movie Ever!" I hope it wasn't too painful to watch.
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